Fix You
by Alex Skywalker
Summary: After six months, they've finally succeeded in capturing Robin. With little to no lead and no idea who "they" are, Batman and the world of heroes attempt to track down his kidnapper. But with what's being done to him, even if they managed to get him back, would Robin ever be the same? Sequel to Behind the Mask.
1. Where

"_One move and I shoot." _

_Artemis froze, the broken end of her bow suspended in midair, inches from delivering a smashing blow to a masked man's head. A fist came up, soaring towards her face, and she dodged, bringing her bow down and successfully knocking out her adversary. She readied to face another foe but found none coming, instead only seeing the confused faces of her teammates._

"_That's what I thought." _

_Confused, Artemis turned around slowly, eyes narrowed until they came to rest on the speaker – the man in the red facemask. He stood across from them, his back to a small, dark alley. His clothes were stained red with blood; one arm was wrapped around a small body, the other holding a gun up against dark hair. _

"_Robin," Artemis gasped. He was covered in blood, his costume torn, and the red helmet man's arm was the only thing supporting his unconscious body. His head was hanging forward and the archer could only barely see the top of his face, but what she could see was covered in more blood, most of it fresh and still bleeding. _

"_If any of you make any move to stop me or follow me I'll blow his brains out." The man tightened his grip on Robin and began backing out towards the alley. "Forget needing him alive, I'm sure Donovan can bring him back." _

_Artemis's eyes darted to each of her teammates, each stunned into silence as they watched the scene unfold. When her gaze finally came to rest on Batman she saw he too was still, his mouth drawn into a tight line as he watched the man drag away his son. He made no move to intervene and it was then that Artemis realized it was over. They'd lost. The man in the red helmet had won and now he was collecting his prize, slowly backing away from them and there was nothing they could do. Artemis wanted to scream, to cry, to run after the man and beat him senseless, but she found she couldn't move. She was frozen, her broken bow still in her grasp and the ghost of Robin's name still on her lips. There was nothing she could do, and that's what scared her most. _

oOo

Artemis blinked away the memory, forcing her mind to see only what was in front of her. It was a brick wall, old and cracking, with ancient spider webs clinging to the crevices. To the right and around the corner Artemis knew the wall continued and that it was covered in blood. There was an old elevator-type contraption there as well, hanging off the ground by an old frayed rope, remnants of another rope, cut, dangling from the side. That's where the blood was; smeared down the wall in a long, dark streak, darkening still as it continued to dry.

It was his blood. Batman had run tests and confirmed it. Artemis turned away from the wall, not willing to see the blood again. It was pointless though, the memory already burned into her head, flashing across her mind's eye whenever she closed her eyes and even when she didn't. Sometimes she wasn't sure if what she was seeing was in front of her face or in front of her mind. What was real and what was memory was blurring into one, becoming one streaky picture of pain.

She let out a gentle breath, loosening the near empty quiver on her back, the jagged edge of her broken bow rubbing against her exposed back. She wasn't able to get it to collapse anymore and, not having anywhere to put it after the fight ended (with all the masked men disappearing along with their leader), simply strung it across her back with the broken string. She'd been out all day, not even having gone back to her house or the mountain to get a change of clothes. It hadn't done any good though. None of their efforts had.

They'd combed the city, Wally and his uncle covering all the main streets and most back ways and Superman covering everything again from the air, x-ray vision scanning every possible hiding spot, all coming up empty. After gathering everything he could from the main scene, Batman had gone off who knows where, doing who knows what and even he'd come up with nothing. The police had shown, shortly after the enemy had disappeared, but Batman had sent them away, not telling them anything.

Robin's tracker signal had led them over to the brick wall around the corner from the blood and Batman had found both trackers' laying a pool of blood. Artemis suspected this scared the Bat the most. From what she'd gathered, no one knew the location of Batman's trackers on either Robin or himself and they were virtually indestructible. Whoever the red-masked man was, he was dangerous. And had seemingly disappeared into thin air.

After participating in the desperate, but futile, chase once after the masked man and Robin, Artemis had stayed with Red Arrow at the scene of the crime while the others continued with the chase. Batman had returned shortly after locating the trackers and stayed to gather information before taking off again, leaving the two archers alone. They'd picked apart the scene of the fight until they'd exhausted all sources of information, still finding nothing of use. All they'd managed to gather was that Robin was seriously injured, judging from all the blood they'd found, and Artemis only hoped that they really did need him alive.

Roy had eventually left, shortly after the sun rose, saying he was heading back to his apartment for food and clean clothes before joining the rest of the heroes in searching a fast-awakening Gotham. He'd even offered that Artemis come back with him and that he'd stop by her place and pick up whatever she needed, but she'd declined. As glad as she was that he was no longer at her throat about being the mole, she couldn't bring herself to leave. She knew as soon as she did she'd be admitting they were that much farther from finding Robin.

So here she was now, well into the afternoon, though the sky, overcast and grey, looked the same as it had at eight in the morning and the archer could almost imagine the search was still in full swing and the heroes hadn't slowly trickled away to take care of business back home, promising to return as soon as possible, but knowing that Batman might not even let them back in. Despite what was happening it was still Gotham and it was still the Bat's city.

"Like he's really even still in Gotham," Artemis murmured to herself, kicking her boot against the wall in attempt to dislodge some caked on mud from who knows when. "Bats is only still searching cause he's got no other leads."

She allowed herself to lean against the wall, a yawn escaping from her mouth before she could catch it. She was exhausted, not having gotten practically any sleep the past two nights and she could feel her body protesting every movement. She knew she should sleep and that she wasn't really any help to Robin dead on her feet, but sleeping felt like giving up and she wasn't about to give up, even if it killed her. She held no doubt in her mind that whatever Robin was going through at the moment was more than ten times worse than herself. She wouldn't sleep, because she knew he wasn't.

oOo

A bright light, pain… so much pain… everything hurt….

"He's waking up."

An even brighter light, shining in his eyes…. Fingers poking and prodding….

"How is he…?"

"Is he responsive…?"

"Check his vision…."

When Robin finally came to, the first thing he was aware of was the bright light shining in his eyes – eye? And then the pain came crashing full force, nearly knocking him out again as it washed over him, tearing his limbs to pieces and wrenching his head in two. He was vaguely aware of voices echoing around his head but he couldn't hear what they were saying, all sound droning together in a distant roar. After a couple moments the pain ebbed slightly, his thoughts beginning to make it out of the tsunami that was his brain and the question of where he was took the frontline.

His first thought was the hospital, or some examination table, which would explain the pain and bright light, but as he became more aware of his body through the pain, he found he could barely lift a finger, something tight encircling his wrists and ankles and preventing movement. That, of course, ruled out scenario number one. Only Bruce was ever strapped to an examination table.

He found he had no other explanation for his current situation so he started to wrack his brain to remember whatever it was that was the last thing he remembered. He found he was drawing a blank, not even a single event coming to mind, whether recently or a longer time ago. The more he thought, in fact, the hazier his mind became and the blurrier his vision became until the light above him was an all-encompassing white hot glow of energy until it faded away all together. The voices in the background were clearer now, which he found strange, as all the rest of his senses seemed to be fading….

"… The damage has already begun to spread to his other eye…."

"… His leg, especially his knee, is practically destroyed on the inside…."

"… Yes, see, if you look, you can see that his right hand is nearly completely dismembered…."

"Alright, alright, I get it. The Hood messed up, or really, messed _him _up, but once the DNA is activated the accelerated healing should kick in and what's not healed won't matter, not with everything else. A quick fix to what's necessary now and we'll leave the rest to science."

"Right, sir. I can fix his vision so he won't be blind, but I can't promise anything for the damaged right eye or the inevitable scarring."

"As long as he can see out of one eye."

"I can reattach the hand, but it will take a whi-"

"Do it now and do it fast."

"Y-yes sir, but I can't promise full mobility-"

"Doesn't matter. And you?"

"His leg and chest should heal with, as you say, science."

"Brilliant. Prep him for what must be done and I shall begin preparing the grand finale. I have him drugged already so don't overdo it!"

Robin listened as the footsteps of the high-voiced, whiny man faded away in the distance, the sound of scurried activity picking up just as they were out of ear shot. Now that he knew he was drugged, Robin found his thoughts strangely clearer, as if his mind, now that it realized why it was messed up, was able to compensate for it. It also helped with reasoning where he might be. Obviously with enemies, otherwise they wouldn't drug him and tie him up, and he now knew he was hurt, meaning he was probably kidnapped as Robin and hadn't gone down without a fight. That, at least, was somewhat reassuring. But hearing his kidnappers talking about his injuries, and their apparent plans for him…

"Ah!" Robin was surprised to hear himself gasp as he felt pain somewhere along his right arm. He couldn't locate the exact spot, or the source of the pain, but he was able to distinguish it from the rest of the pain encircling him. And he was able to voice his discomfort.

"Don't worry now, little one, this'll all be over soon."

The voice was creepy, eerie and taunting and not at all reassuring. It was high-pitched, though obviously belonging to man, sounding like that of the insane, and Robin found himself hoping that it wouldn't be over soon, the end sounding even worse than the journey.

"While I sew you back together, Merida's gonna go in your eyes and make you see again." The voice laughed here and Robin could feel something brush against his arm. "Oops! I better be more careful; wouldn't wanna do anymore damage." Except he would.

"Shut up, Sixty-two."

This voice sounded like it belonged to a woman. It was medium-pitched and even, speaking of calm and collected and this confused Robin even more.

"You don't need to scare him anymore than he already is."

"Why not?" Robin figured this was 'Sixty-two' talking. "He ain't got much time left anyways."

"Exactly."

"You wanna make his last moments sane special, is that it? Well aren't you precious."

"Shut up."

Sixty-two just laughed and Robin felt the sharp pain return to his arm as Sixty-two 'sewed him up'. Robin supposed the idea should've made him queasy or something, but, thanks to whatever he'd been drugged with, his head was too fluffy to really make such emotions. He felt pain but he didn't feel the fear or worry or primal need to get away from it that he usually felt, instead feeling complacent, willing to lay there while someone sewed his hand back on to his body.

And that was another thing. He was essentially blind, crippled, and nearly an amputee and it didn't faze him. He knew it should, and he was aware of how big a deal such things were, but he didn't feel fear. He didn't feel anything. He was emotionless. He could be told that his friends and family all died and that he was paralyzed and blind and deaf and he didn't think he would even think twice about it. Honestly, for all he knew, that was all true. And yet didn't, _couldn't, _care. And if he was capable of being scared, he knew that knowledge would terrify him.

"Ew, you're gonna go right in his eye? While he's awake?!" Sixty-two's voice was even more obnoxious than usual.

"Finish your own job and don't question mine."

"I'm already done."

"You better hope you got all the muscle." Merida didn't sound too concerned.

"Well, s'not like I could do much, what with the bone and stuff all smashed up. Most the muscle's all torn and stuff anyway. I put it back on, but it's more damaged than that."

"Your funeral."

"Nya nya, nya nya."

Robin felt and heard Merida huff and he figured she was leaning over him, close to his face. He felt a sharp prick of pain on his cheek before his face suddenly fell numb. Whatever remaining mobility he'd had in his face was gone now. A slight itching started somewhere near his eyes and he had the sudden urge to burrow into his skull and scratch at the inside of his face. While he wasn't sure if that was considered an emotion or not, he was glad he at least had a desire to do _something_, no matter how ridiculous.

"There we go, little one, inside."

It was Merida talking, even though she used Sixty-two's nickname. Robin was surprised he remembered that. Actually, he was surprised he even remembered his own name, but he figured that would all come in time. And he wasn't the least bit loath for it to come. All he really wanted to do was itch his brain.

"Let's see, little one."

Suddenly the bright light returned, shining full force into Robin's eye, making him desperately want to blink. He found something was holding his eyelid open however, and he was unable to block out the florescent glare. A sudden primal anger welled up inside of him and he found himself hating whatever it was that was stopping him from blinking, hating it with all his strength, his very being. He wanted to pound it, smash it, crush it, and rip it apart into a hundred tiny pieces and then brutally meld those pieces back together, only to do it all again.

"Very good."

And then it was gone, and what was left of Robin's coherent mind was left confused. But he didn't have time, or was unable to dwell on it because the itching was back; this time on the right side and Robin even felt his arms jerk in their cuffs in an attempt to reach the source of the discomfort.

"Now we shall see about the other one."

The itch didn't last nearly as long as the last time, but Robin found himself disliking it more than before. Not hating it, like with the light, but it was a strong dislike instead of an annoyance. Some part of him, way back in the caverns of his mind that hadn't been drugged, knew that something was very wrong about this, but the forefront of his mind, the part that was now making itself in charge of all decisions and that was drugged while doing, wouldn't let him dwell on it long enough to figure out why.

"Not much I can do for this one, little one, not in the short amount of time I'm allowed."

The itching stopped and, if he could move his face, Robin would've sighed in relief. But then the light was back, though this time much fuzzier and fainter and the hate that had accompanied it last time was absent. The disappeared again and Robin listened to the clinking of metal off near his right ear as Merida continued muttering to herself and to him and sometimes seemingly to someone, though something told Robin that someone wasn't Sixty-two.

"Hm, like I thought. Shame, you have such pretty blue eyes. Now you'll only have one, though I hope I managed to save enough that it'll still look nice. I like looking at your eyes. They're rather lovely, aren't they…."

"Are you done yet?" Sixty-two's voice sounded from somewhere across the room, though Robin couldn't seem to get his head to move to try to locate him. "Boss says he wants to start the 'procedure'."

"Hmph, does he now?"

Robin was surprised by the change in Merida's voice. It was like she'd completely changed personality, snapping at Sixty-two.

"Well I'm done. Better job than you as well."

"Blah blah blah. Unlike you, I really don't care if the brat is hanging together by threads. He's just gonna morph into a hulk in a day or two anyways."

Merida sniffed, but didn't reply.

"Boss wants him in the procedure room when we're done with him." Sixty-two's voice floated around to Robin's right side.

"Fine."

Robin felt a jolt and suddenly he was moving; his body was doing nothing but he could feel himself being propelled forward. He tried to lift or turn his head to try to see where they were going, but found his neck was paralyzed and he was left staring at the glowing lights above him. He wiggled his fingers on his left hand (his right wasn't cooperating with him either) and was surprised when they moved. Whatever was restraining his head didn't seem to have any power over his limbs.

"He's strugglin'!" Sixty-two's voice was urgent.

"No he's not."

"I say he is. Knock him out."

"Doctor Dabney said he was injected with enough."

"Boo hoo. I'm doin' it."

Robin felt a tiny prick somewhere on his body – he found he couldn't locate it though. He watched as the lights above him got fuzzier and dimmer and he lost all sense of feeling everywhere. Everything turned to a dull roar until there was nothing at all.

* * *

**A/N: **I'm baa-aack! How you guys been doing? I know, it's been a while, but here it is, ready to kick into high gear! (Just, once I get back from backpacking for a week). I hope you guys are ready for another wild ride, cuz I'm not stopping for anything. Hold onto your socks!

If you enjoyed this chapter and the start of something new (cue singing), it would be great if you left a review! Even if you didn't enjoy it, it'd be cool to know why ;). Just tell me stuff! I've missed you guys!

Until next time!

Alex out.


	2. How Many Days

**A/N: **Another chapter!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! I'm sorry if I didn't get around to replying to all of you. Thank you **noaverageangel, Ryir, nad, Zeldalsis, SevenSilences, Charlie Grayson, GRUBStheBESThero, XxNeonShadowsxX, WillowC1, Guest, witchsoul531, KaliAnn, Blue Torpedo, Ravenietta**. You guys rock! I got a ton of reviews for the first chapter so thank you so much! It's cool to see so many familiar names and so many new ones! Keep it up!

Here's the next chapter:

* * *

Bright lights…. What time was it? Did Alfred open his curtains? Alfred… where was he? If he'd opened the curtains, shouldn't he have stuck around to make sure Dick actually woke up? Why was his bed so hard? And what was that smell?

Dick sat up, eyes flying wide open before suddenly the world started spinning and he thought his was about to explode. He felt his body crashing back down, but only vaguely registered the jar of hitting the hard surface beneath him. His brain felt like it was being deep fried and he couldn't get his vision to focus. Trying to fight down the panic he took a deep breath, only to feel a slight burning in his lungs and throat. A coughing fit soon overtook him and for a minute, Dick was sure he was going to die like that, choking and completely disoriented and he felt a slight twinge of fear.

Wait, slight? And then, as the coughing subsided and he closed his eyes, a few memories trickled back; three people, two doing _something _to him, the lack of emotion, the lack of feeling in general, being unable to move…. Well, he wasn't strapped down anymore, and he was beginning to feel again. That was good, right? Dick fought to think through the fog in his mind. He wasn't at home, that was for sure, and he was in the hands of unfriendly people, if he was any judge of character (though at the moment he doubted whether he was) and this was all bad. Especially since he had no idea how he got here. Wherever here was.

Dick tried desperately to think through everything – to _process _everything – but found he couldn't. He knew there were things he had to do. Things he could do to help him determine his location, or at least something of the place where he was at, but he couldn't get his brain to tell his body the actions. He couldn't even get his brain to think it all through. Dick growled, frustrated with his lack of ability. At least some of his emotions were coming back. He knew that was good. He did know that, right?

Suddenly his ears started to pick up sound and he tuned into it, trying to decipher the origin. It sounded like tapping, or slapping, and it was steadily growing louder. Dick wanted to open his eyes and try to locate the source of the sound, but the pain in his head was somehow getting through to his sluggish brain and wouldn't let him. The slapping got louder and louder and Dick began to think his eardrums would explode when finally it stopped and the air was deathly silent for a moment. Then a clicking echoed through his head and a creaking and then the slapping again and breathing and then the motion of a hand through the air and Dick felt his breathing pick up and he thought his head was going to explode and then he felt a prick and –

"A little overdue for that I think."

A voice. A women's voice. Dick recognized it. He'd heard it before….

"Much better, huh? Sixty-two was supposed to give you a dose a couple hours ago but I take that he didn't. Really begins to mess with your mind, doesn't it? The real world. I know how you feel."

Wait, was she talking to him?

"I hate it. All these voices, sounds, all telling you different things. Signs saying 'this way' and 'that way' and up and down. But it's okay. You're safe from that. At least for now. But soon, I guess you won't have to worry about all that stuff at all."

Dick felt a cool hand on his arm, rubbing. It rubbed for a moment before trailing down to his wrist. Then he felt something rough sliding over his wrist.

"I don't think these are necessary. You couldn't do anything any way. But Doctor Donovan insists. Of course he knows what he's doing, but sometimes I think he's a bit excessive. But you did evade him for so long…."

Dick felt the rough… strap? tighten around his wrist and he knew it should hurt, but his brain refused to acknowledge the pain. Unlike his head which… didn't hurt anymore either….

"We're starting the procedures today."

Procedures?

"It's pretty exciting. You probably won't remember much of it, but just think of the end results."

Another tugging on his other arm.

"Hmm, you're arm's not looking as good as we hoped. As I hoped. And the Doctor hoped. I'm sure Sixty-two didn't care. The Doctor never should have let him fix it. He has no heart whatsoever. Just a piece of metal. And it shows. You wouldn't think it would, but it does. Heartless man. Creature."

There were two tugs on either leg. Dick wondered why he could feel them at all.

"Now let's check your eyes. I'm sure they're exactly what the Doctor wanted."

And then Dick's eyes were wrenched open and he found himself staring at a bright, white light. As he looked his head began to hurt again, though only very mildly and in the corner of his discombobulated brain. There was a strange… prodding? on his right and then his left eye and he tried to close them again. He couldn't.

"Not _too _shabby. The right one's not all there, but that's why we have two."

Somewhere, Dick didn't think that was the reason.

"Looks like we're late. Better get a move on."

The voice…. It was almost, cheery. Strange, and unnatural, but almost… happy. Dick felt his eyes finally shut again and there was a small jolt and then Dick felt himself moving. The slapping noise picked up again, this time accompanied by squeaking and clunking but neither noise was overpowering and Dick was relieved, which he wasn't sure he was actually feeling or not. Even his confusion wasn't really there. It was strange, like a cover up. Like reciting the words from a book, but not actually reading them. Knowing them so well, but not seeing the actual words.

"Merida, let's go!"

A new voice. This one high, but gruff. A man. Again, Dick recognized it.

"What kept ya?"

"None of your business, Sixty-two."

The women's voice was different now. Not the strange, unnatural joy as before but instead cold and commanding, like an officer. Again, Dick found himself reading the emotion of confusion, but he couldn't feel it and let it pass.

"'None of your business, Sixty-two'", the male voice mocked.

There was silence following, whereupon the slapping increased in count, like two new added beats. Dick lay there as his body was whisked along, but because of his lack of feeling it almost felt like he was floating somewhere above himself, watching, or feeling, as his body was carried along. His body? Did the body belong to him? Or was he just riding in it for a while? No, it was his. He knew that. He had to keep a hold of what he knew.

But why?

Because he had to. He didn't know why, but he knew there was a reason. He had to remember who he was. He'd already lost sight, emotion, and most feeling; he had to hold onto what he had. Even if he couldn't remember why.

But wouldn't letting go be so much easier? It wasn't _really _his body after all. If he just let himself drift away from it, he wouldn't have to worry about anything. He could watch it all from the outside, safe in nowhere.

No. He couldn't let go of his body. He was Dick Grayson and Robin, ward of Bruce Wayne and partner to the Batman. That's who he was. Besides, he couldn't really even feel anything, so what did he have to worry about? He wasn't even feeling worried, though, was he?

Something changed. Dick's brain was struggling to tell him that and he struggled to figure out why. He wasn't moving anymore. The slapping had stopped. Now there was another creaking noise, very subtle, and then he was moving again, but instead of slapping there was squeaking. It was kind of… annoying? Maybe….

"Finally."

"I apologize, Doctor."

"Yeah, it was all her fault."

"Shut up, Sixty-two."

"Yes sir."

The new voice… also familiar. Again, high for a man, but still a male. Cool, but insane at the same time. Was that possible? Dick's brain didn't seem up to figuring it out so he let it go. He'd heard it before though, recently it seemed.

"Bring him over. Let's take a look at him." It was the new voice. The Doctor.

Dick was moving again. More squeaking.

"Your shoes are making an awful screech. Tell them to shut up."

"Sorry sir, the floor is wet outside." It was Merida now.

"Sixty-two, dry the floor."

"But sirrrr-"

"Do it."

More squeaking, fading away, and then a dull slam that echoed around the… room?

"So ungrateful."

"Yes sir."

Merida's voice… it was still authorative, like when she was talking to Sixty-two, but now there was a hint of reverence in it; a shadow of what she'd said to Dick earlier when they'd been alone. "_But Doctor Donovan insists. Of course he knows what he's doing…."_

"He looks good!"

Dick had stopped moving. In the quiet, his ears began to pick up other sounds. Whirring noises, crackling, small zaps. His brain was trying to tell him something about the sounds, but he couldn't decipher what. It seemed like a warning…. Maybe the sounds were bad. There was beeping as well, multiple tiny beeps, all in slightly different tones, coming from various places around the room they were in. Dick had no idea how big the room was, and he had no desire to open his eyes to find out, but it sounded big. Could he trust his ears, though?

"Hand is reattached. That's good." The Doctor was talking again. "Face is still cut up, but eye looks better. I trust your work, Merida."

"Thank you, sir."

"He looks ready. Get him prepped and set up for the first stage."

"Yes sir."

"You, my little experiment," Robin knew he was talking to him. "Are in for a long ride." And that was his last coherent thought for a long time.

oOo

Bruce was oh so tempted to lean against the wall and rest. To close his eyes for a minute, just a minute, and let his body breath. But that wasn't an option – not now. Robin had been missing for over forty-eight hours already; Bruce knew he wasn't dead, but that was all he knew. The boy was too valuable to his kidnapper to die, but Bruce of all people knew there were far worse fates than death. And he was terrified of those fates. Terrified of everything and anything his boy could be going through while he, Batman, wandered around Gotham aimlessly, having no lead and no idea where to start.

He'd already scoured the city, digging into every nook and cranny, tearing to pieces anything that might lead to anything concerning a man in a red facemask or a mad scientist going by the name of Cadmus. Of course he'd found nothing more than he had before. No one knew anything. A few claimed to have seen the red masked man, but no one knew his origin – where he'd come from or where he might be going. And there'd been no sign of him since Robin's capture.

Not that Bruce really expected there to be, but at this point, he was grasping at any hope out there.

With a tired sigh, Batman finally allowed himself to fade into the shadows and gain a small bit of support from the brick wall behind his back. He was already feeling at the end of his rope, his nerves and temper frayed thin and is body running on pure adrenaline. He'd only returned to the Batcave once since the fight, and then only to gather necessary equipment to begin a search. At that point he'd been certain he'd be able to track down Robin and his kidnapper in a matter of hours – they had, after all, disappeared right before his eyes – and hadn't bothered to eat anything. He'd left Alfred a message the day before, but other than that, hadn't stopped his hunt once.

Bruce knew he was exhausted – beyond exhausted – and was slowly tearing himself to pieces by doing this, but he couldn't bring himself to rest. Not knowing that Robin could very well be in the most pain of his life, prodded and poked and jabbed and experimented on. There was no way he could sleep through that. So he ignored the rational part of his mind, telling him that he was no good to anyone like this, least of all Robin, and pushed himself further and harder than ever before. He would find his son if it killed him.

'_And it very well might', _he thought to himself, letting his cowled head fall back against the wall. _'What are you trying to do here, Bruce? You know he's not in Gotham, you're just too afraid to admit it, because once you do, you know you're lost. After Gotham, there's nowhere to go.' _

After Gotham, he had no leads, no ideas, and for the World's Greatest Detective, that was as good as a bullet to the head. At least when it concerned his son.

"_Batman, are you there?" _

Bruce put a finger to his comm. "What is it, Clark?"

"_I'm just wondering if you've had any luck." _

"What do you think?"

There was a sigh, then: _"Listen Bruce, we're all doing the best we can, but the fact is, we have no idea where to look." _

"I'm not blaming you."

"_No, you're blaming yourself." _

"I don't need this right now, Clark."

"_Bruce, I-"_

"Save it. I have work to do."

"_Have you alerted the police?" _

"No, the world doesn't need to know that Robin's gone." That wasn't entirely true. Commissioner Gordon knew.

"_What about Dick Grayso-"_

"If I can't find him, neither can the police. I'm hanging up now, Clark. Don't call me back."

"_I'm sorry Bruce, I'm just trying to help-"_

With a sigh, Bruce switched off his communicator, disabling it so it would only receive emergency calls from the Batcave. He didn't have time for this. Pushing his weary body off the wall, Batman stalked over to where he'd parked the Batcycle and climbed on. He'd sweep the outskirts again. Maybe question some more thugs in the narrows. He'd already targeted most of the major crime bosses, but there were others. It wasn't likely that they would know anything, but, as much as he'd never admit it, he'd been wrong before. He'd find a way to beat this, to get Robin back. He was Batman and Bruce Wayne, the richest, most powerful and terrifying man in the entire city and most of the country. If anyone could do it, it was him.

oOo

_Three days. _

More like three years. That's what it felt like, spending every minute waiting, wondering if her best friend was even alive. Waiting for a call saying he'd been found, or, after the first day, if there were even any leads. It hurt, sitting at home, twiddling her thumbs, while the rest of the superhero world was out searching. Even if they hadn't found anything, at least they were _doing_ something. Of course, she could sneak out again, swing around Gotham on her own. Even if she wasn't really being of any help, it was better than sitting at home. But she was too scared of being found by Batman – _again_. She was sure he was still mad at her. If it hadn't been for Alfred's call, she was sure that she never would have known what happened and would believe that Dick and Bruce were off on a ski trip in Austria, just like the rest of the world.

Rolling across her bed, Barbara slowly stood up, stretching her stiff muscles and letting her eyes wander around her room. Her Christmas gifts were scattered around, lying forgotten on the floor. While she'd semi-managed to put on a happy face for her dad (he still didn't know about Batgirl, and Barbara was planning on keeping it that way), she couldn't bring herself to care anymore. Christmas day had started out fine, until she'd gotten the call from Alfred after the annual meal of takeout. Thankfully she'd been in her room at the time or her dad would have heard her crying. She'd cried for Robin and for their last interaction when she'd screamed at him. They hadn't spoken since.

'_And might never again.' _

Barbara tried to silence the voice in her head, but she couldn't. It was always there, reminding her of what she'd potentially lost forever. Of her biggest mistake of her life.

'_So melodramatic, Barbara.' _She sighed to herself, turning and walking towards her bathroom, gently pushing the door open. She turned and faced the mirror, staring back at her reflection, but not really seeing her tangled mess of hair or her blotchy, tearstained face. She knew she looked like a mess, but couldn't bring herself to care. She was just scared of when her dad finally started to notice.

He'd been busy recently and Barbara figured he knew what had happened to Robin, but that only made her feel even more useless. The house was lonely and empty and, while it was good for crying, somehow made everything worse. She wanted to be alone, but so desperately didn't. Apart from the few calls from Wally and the one voicemail message from Artemis, she hadn't heard or talked to anyone in the past three days. Her dad had stopped home a few times, but she'd always pretended to be asleep. She so badly wanted to hug him and have him tell her it was alright, but she knew that was a lie and she was sick of lies.

oOo

_Four days. _

Wally absently rubbed his leg while he sat at his computer, scrolling slowly through document after document of scientific research notes he'd managed to nab off of Robin's wrist computer he'd found abandoned at the site of the… incident. He knew there would be nothing in them, but it was all he could do, and he had to do something. Maybe he could somehow find… something. Some connection to Cadmus or the masked man or something. Anything. He hadn't yet, but he'd only been at it for… fourteen hours? His clock must be off. Maybe.

He really wanted to be out in the field with Uncle Barry, running across the country to possible locations of wherever Robin had been taken to, but he'd been sent home after the second day. He'd apparently hurt his leg in the fighting and the injury had made itself known after a particularly intense run to the outskirts of Orlando and Barry had made him go home. It was only a sprain and the doctor machine at the Mountain had said it would heal in a few days, but nonetheless, he'd been put on house arrest.

_Four days. _

That was a long time, especially for a speedster. His mind turned seconds in minutes and minutes into hours and when he was anxious, it only got worse. Time could fly by while at the same dragging on for ages. There was no way he'd been sitting at his computer for fourteen hours but at the same time, it felt more like fourteen days. Or years. He wasn't really sure anymore. All he knew was that the entire time his best friend was going through, no doubt, the worst experience of his whole life, suffering through pain unimaginable.

Wally had heard what Batman had said to Flash about what he'd found in Robin's DNA and, while Wally had never spliced DNA before, he knew it wouldn't be easy. Or painless. He'd seen the shock in his uncle's face when he'd examined the traces of enhanced DNA Bruce had found and felt the air in the room grow cold. He knew what was happening right now, somewhere in the world, to his best friend, and it scared him. It terrified him. And so he searched and worked and tried to do something. Anything.

He'd gotten a few calls from the Mountain over the past few days, probably from Conner and M'gann wanting an update, but he hadn't been able to bring himself to answer. He hadn't talked to anybody since he'd been sent home, though he'd almost called Artemis and Roy multiple times for information, only to stop as he listened to the messages his uncle left him five times a day. He'd grown tired of hearing _nothing _repeated over and over again. He hated the word and wasn't willing to hear it from anybody else.

At first his parents had tried to talk to him, but eventually they'd grown tired of talking to a locked door and left him alone as well. His mom brought him food, leaving it outside the door with a "I'm here if you need anything, Sweetie". Yeah he needed something: his best friend safe. He'd almost cried twice, but caught himself. He couldn't cry. He had to be strong for Dick. He couldn't admit defeat.

oOo

"Yah!"

The thug went down, blood gushing from his nose and mouth, his eyes fluttering closed as he fell unconscious next to his three partners, each sporting the beginnings of impressive bruises on their face and heads. Their weapons lay abandoned, strewn about the alley among the bags of drugs they'd been attempting to smuggle into the old apartment building just five yards to their right. They hadn't quite reached their destination.

Artemis sniffed as she wiped her face with the back of her arm. Rubbing her gloved knuckles she kicked one of the men over, revealing the gun in the waistband of his pants, just above his butt. She reached down and snatched it up, turning it over and examining it for a minute before unloading it and letting the cartridge and gun fall back to the concrete with a dull clatter. She didn't care that it was the dead of night and she was probably alerting every criminal within earshot (there were a lot, she'd heard them) because at this point, she hoped they'd come. She wanted them to come at her, all at once, angry and vicious and bloodthirsty and she wanted to beat them all senseless. Every single one.

"Maybe dad was right after all." She muttered hoarsely, picking up her broken bow from the ground and slinging it back over her shoulder. "Maybe I am no better than him."

She knew he wouldn't agree. The boy that had showed her the better side of herself would argue and say that she was better than she gave herself credit for. He would say that she had so much more in herself than this: beating up criminals for fun; he always told her stuff that like. Used to tell her. He wasn't here now. Not here to tell show her the good side of humanity and herself. No, he was somewhere suffering from the worst humanity had to offer. He didn't deserve it. He didn't any of it.

She should probably call Red again. He'd tried to contact her twice already and she hadn't bothered to answer. He didn't have a lead, so what did it matter? Since when did he start caring about where she was or what she was doing. Before this, they'd barely even talked except for the occasional threat, but now, since they'd spent the past three days running around Gotham together in their tights, he'd taken it as an invitation to be her friend. Or something. But friends and Artemis weren't exactly the most compatible nouns in the world and since she'd just lost one of her first and maybe only friends, she wasn't sure how quick she was willing to get more.

'_Wally called too," _that little voice in her head reminded her.

"Hah, Robin brings together even more people in his absence than he does he's around. Little freak." Artemis almost smiled as she turned her face to the sky, searching the not-so-dark skyline for points of interest.

The fact was she was scared. Scared of what might happen to the first and only first to believe in her. To really believe in her.

'_When did he go from annoying brat to savior?'_ The archer growled to herself.

But the fact was he had. And now she had to as well.

_Five days._

* * *

**Please Review!**

**Alex out.**


	3. Long Shot

**A/N:** Here's the next chapter! It got really long somehow, so it's the longest one yet! Thank you everyone who reviewed last chapter! I really want to respond to you all, but school's started and I'm really busy, so thank you sooooo much to: **noaverageangel, KaliAnn, SevenSilences, Darkninja457, Kelley1432, Handmaiden of Awesomeness, XxNeonShadowsxX, Zeldalsis, Guest, xnightwing, fluffsterzz, **and** soccernin19**! Thank you guys!

Now, chapter 3:

* * *

_Inter-city Lab Delivery_

The car was an old taxi, repainted badly to be solid yellow, and the title was typed out on a paper card stuck to the inside of the back window. It was crude, but served its purpose well enough and in the city, no one even gave it a second thought except to sometimes mistake it for a taxi. That actually could get rather annoying, but often enough the offenders would end up with a bullet through their heads so it was good target practice. No one thought twice about that either.

Jenks took a long drag from the end of his cigarette before lazily flicking it out the window, sending a casual glance at the rearview mirror to see if he could spot where it landed. A hair left of the stripe. Again. He'd have to adjust his target.

As he rolled lazily up to the flickering red light, Jenks stuck his head out of the window just a bit and angled his face towards the sky, sniffing as he saw grey clouds, not heavy with rain, but not fluffy and white either. They cast a shadow over the whole city, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. It was only really sunny two days out of the week, on a good week, and the rest of the time the sky was overcast and blank, lending to the general atmosphere of the city. Jenks was used to it, though, and found he didn't really miss the sun most of the time anyway. It was too hot. And bright. With clouds you could really save money on sunglasses. But he wore those all the time anyway, so that didn't really factor in.

The light turned green again and Jenks switched his foot back to the gas and sped through the intersection, only slowly down after nearly rear ending the bus in front of him. Collateral damage wasn't really good for the publicity, which they tried to keep nonexistent. Taking his eyes off the road, he glanced down to the piece of paper in his hand with the untidy scrawl dragging across its length. It was an address to the new location for pickup, as the other one had been disposed of after it served its time. Too much business to one place attracted too much attention. Besides, now that the feeding tube had been installed, they needed somewhere to get stuff for that as well. They could only starve the little brat for so long.

Jenks tossed the paper back onto the passenger seat and redirected his attention to the traffic, swerving to avoid a kid who'd wandered a bit too far from his dumpster. His death probably wouldn't be noticed, but Jenks was always surprised at the amount of caring mothers in the city, so it was better not to take the chance.

Yawning, Jenks settled back into the ratty seat of the car, reaching over and digging around in the trash that littered the floor for a pack of cigarettes. He located one fairly quickly and tugged a cigarette loose, flicking open the lighter lying in the ashtray and lighting the end of it before sticking it in his mouth. He settled back and let his mind wander, knowing the road he was looking for wouldn't come for another fifteen minutes.

There really wasn't much to think about in his life, other than the current experiment and the gossip surrounding it. He'd lost any chance of a social life when he'd joined the gig over twelve years ago as a high school drop-out hoping to earn some quick cash. Little did he know it was a lifelong commitment. But it wasn't all that bad either; he got food and drink, company, however quiet it could be at times, and he had unlimited access to anything out on the wide world of the internet to keep him company in his lonely life. Sure he'd been forever thrust into silence and secrecy because of what he knew, but there were far worse things out there. He knew: he'd come from worse.

But the current experiment. That's what filled his life now. Everything he did and everything he was surrounded the experiment and because of that, he knew everything he could know about it. He wasn't really supposed to know at least half of what he did know, but Sixty-two had a loose tongue and Donovan knew there wasn't much harm in him, or any of the rest of the crew, knowing anyway as they couldn't talk about it even if they wanted to. There was no way they'd squeal to the police or anybody else. Even if they did somehow get past the speech barrier they'd be blown halfway to hell before they got halfway to anywhere else.

So he knew most everything and because it was his life, he dwelled on it. The current experiment was one of the biggest there'd been since the original Cadmus had gotten shut down all those years ago. That was before Jenks's time, but he'd heard enough. Of course, it was one of the only 'interrupted' experiments Donovan had performed, what with the escape of the subject back in July, but all things considered, it seemed to be going fairly well, if not slower than expected.

From what Jenks had heard, the DNA hadn't fused yet and they were still somewhere in the process of prepping the body and preparing the DNA for the fusion, which was one of the last steps before the actual fusion, which in itself would potentially take a few weeks as well. Jenks didn't understand how something like mushing two different DNAs together could take a month, if not more, but the familiar response of "that's why you're the errand boy and not the scientist" rang through his head.

As for the actual condition of the subject: he heard a lot about that as well. That was one of the more popular topics around the drinking table at night (just because their ability to talk was terminated didn't mean the crew couldn't communicate with each other) as it was more enjoyable to mull over the torture of others instead of complicated science, especially when said torture was always so much worse than your own. It really put a nice spin on things in one's own life.

Sixty-two actually wasn't one to often bring news about the subject, as that wasn't usually his responsibility and he was always getting in trouble for it, and Merida wouldn't give any of the crew the time of day, so K2-5 was the primary source of gossip on that topic. Him and his on-and-off partner Brick (it was Donovan's nickname of course) had brought in fresh news just the last night about the subject and Jenks found his pick-up job to confirm what had been said.

They'd repeated the old new about the feeding tube - Cirk had overheard Sixty-two talking about it to Merida two days ago – about how Donovan had been forced to realize that his subject was slowly wasting away from lack of nourishment, a sign that the experiment was taking longer than he'd previously anticipated. They'd also said he was still unconscious or delirious the entire time and, according to Merida, he hadn't made any signs of recognizing surroundings or people the few times he'd been awake. He'd been under for almost a month now and apparently it was getting boring as his suffering wasn't nearly as acute as it would be if he were cognizant.

They'd also said his body continued to not heal itself, but that was a good sign, Donovan said, as it meant it was waiting for the new healing gene to take effect. Once it did, any injuries would be only distant memories and hence he'd left alone any current damage done to the body. Jenks appreciated that. Sure the kid would be righter than rain once he was jacked up, but for now he had to deal with having a less than complete body. It was one of the things that made Jenks wish the brat _were_ conscious.

There hadn't been much more news besides the extended time the experiment was taking. A lot of the crew was wondering if it was going to be a success or not, but Brick and K2-5 claimed that Donovan was confident of it. It really wouldn't matter either way to the crew. If it was a success, all the supervillains who'd attempted to track down the subject would get their reward, Donovan would have created another monster to add to his résumé, and he'd move onto something new, the crew with him. If it was a failure, Donovan would whine about it, take his anger out on some poor, unfortunate, soon-to-be mutant and then move on and try again. Maybe this time he'd swallow his pride and pick a subject off the street and save all the hassle. Either way, nothing changed. There was no promise of world domination or immortality or lifelong riches. Only science and those too foolish to get out while they had the chance.

oOo

"We're never going to get a mission, are we?"

"Wally, you asked that yesterday." Artemis sighed, not looking up from the bow and rag in her hands. "I really don't understand why you'd even want to go on a mission," she muttered quietly.

"I was hoping it would distract me." Wally murmured back, just as quietly, but there was venom in his voice.

Artemis sighed again, this time looking up to where the speedster had stopped in his pacing; his eyes icy as they stared back at her.

"I'm sorry."

The ice melted and the freckled face deflated again, the eyes once again shadows in the pale landscape, red hair limp and lifeless as the rest of the body.

"Me too."

They were the only ones at the cave that day. M'gann and Conner were out together somewhere, Kaldur was in Atlantis for the week, and Zatanna was spending time with Raquel. It was like this more often than not, Artemis noticed, but she found she preferred it this way. She exploded too much at her team when they were around and things were hard enough without… without losing anymore friends. Because, as much as she told herself the only reason she still stuck around the cave was because it was the easiest place to search for leads on Robin, she knew that the real reason was the people who also stuck around the cave. Friends. She'd never really had any of those before.

"Did you hear Bats got a dog?"

Speaking of friends: Wallace West. Artemis never thought she would be able to bring herself to even tolerate the kid, even after Robin had told her time and again how 'awesome' he really was, but since the _incident_, something had changed between the two of them. Artemis wasn't the kind of person to believe it had anything to do with her suddenly realizing her faults after such a traumatic event and becoming a better person and wanting to make up to old enemies, blah, blah, blah. No, if anything she'd become a worse person after the event. The only thing that had changed was that suddenly, they understood each other.

None of the others on the Team understood what Artemis and Wally were going through. Sure they all loved Robin and were devastated by what had happened, but they'd never been close to him – not like Artemis and Wally were. The Team didn't know the things they knew about the boy and that somehow united them. They were the only ones who felt Robin's loss like a potentially-fatal wound to the heart. Robin had somehow managed to bring them together, and the kid wasn't even around to see it.

'_He'd be laughing his little head off," _Artemis thought grimly, then said out loud: "Yeah, more like a bear. I saw the thing sniffing around last night and I almost shot it."

"I guess Bats is hoping it'll be able to sniff down Robin or something." Wally stopped pacing.

"I hope it does, if only for his sake." Artemis shuttered at the memories of the few times she'd seen Batman over the last month. They were… disturbing to say the least. It was almost like watching….

"He's really starting to scare me. He was talking to my uncle the other day and…," Wally walked over and leaned against the back of the couch Artemis was sitting on. "It was like watching a wild animal, almost."

Artemis nodded, letting her hands and bow drop into her lap.

"What if…," Wally paused, as though unsure whether to continue. "I just can't help thinking, what if Batman destroys himself trying to find him. I mean, there's been minimal to no contact between him and the League, unless Superman threatens an update, and even Alfred's been silent. Flash says it looks like he barely sleeps and Gotham is… well, as terrified as the rest of us. Not to mention just about every secret organization and lab in the whole country. Just… what if Rob comes home to this? What if, by the time Bats finds him, Batman's so far off the deep end there's no pulling him back? And then there's Bruce Wayne…. What are we gonna do Arty?"

Artemis was so busy wallowing in feelings of hopelessness she almost missed the nickname at the end. 'Arty'? Where did that come from?

"I just feel so useless!" Wally was still talking, having resumed his pacing at a fervent speed, his hands flying around wildly and his face contorted into concern and anger and confusion.

"What can we do, Wally?" Artemis stood up now, her face flushed in anger that she had no idea where it came from. "What more can we do? What more can anyone do? We've searched, the League has searched, the freaking _Batman _has searched, and what have we found? Nothing. So I ask you, what more can we do?"

"So you just wanna give up?" Wally rounded on the archer, his fists clenched. "Lie down and accept defeat?!"

"I'm just being realistic!"

"If it were you who was captured, Rob wouldn't rest till he found you!"

"And I haven't! But we can only go over the scene so many times! We can only scour Gotham for so long before _there's nowhere else to look_!"

"Well then we look somewhere else!"

"Great, I'll pack my bags and we'll take a road trip around the world, searching every nook and cranny for an evil scientist bent on farcical genetic experimentation with a fetish for thirteen-year-old heroes!"

"I-" Wally looked like he was about to yell and angry retort before he closed his mouth, his fists dropping and his tightly clenched jaw falling slack. "I'm sorry. I know you've looked – been looking – this whole time. I just… wish I could do more. I wish I could find him…."

"I'm sorry too." And then Artemis cracked a smile, collapsing back on the couch with a sigh. "Who'd of ever thought we'd spend a day apologizing to each other after blatantly screaming about our feelings."

Wally smiled too, stopping his pacing again and walking around the front of the couch. "Now are you gonna tell me I'm 'not so bad' and I'll reply that 'you're not either' and we'll fall into throws of romantic passion?"

"I hope not."

There was silence for a minute, in which Artemis awkwardly laughed and Wally awkwardly laughed as well before suddenly there was nothing else to say and they both tried to look anywhere but at each other before Wally finally sat down in an armchair next to the couch spoke up.

"Have you talked to Roy recently?"

"No," Artemis was glad for the semi-change of subject. Nothing strayed far from the elephant in the room on any day, and everything seemed to be related to said elephant in one way or another, so really it was only a slight variation of the subject, but these days, it was all they had because man, that elephant had a big family. "I actually haven't seen him around Gotham much either."

"Hmm," Wally hummed, reaching over to the coffee table where a half-empty bag of chips lay abandoned from some previous event. "I tried to call him the other day, but he didn't pick up. Flash said the League hasn't seen much of him either."

"Great, just what we need," Artemis muttered, watching as Wally reached into the bag and pulled out a handful of fried fat. "Another angsty, broody, destructive, reclusive, loner man who won't pick up the phone."

"Wow, impressive adjectives." Wally spoke around a mouthful of chips, but for once, Artemis didn't turn up her nose. She'd learned more about the speedster's strange metabolism over the past weeks and, while she still didn't approve of most of his eating habits, she accepted some as inevitable.

"But seriously," he continued once he'd swallowed. "The last time he wouldn't answer my calls was after he'd ditched the hat."

"Well, if it's any consolation to you, he only just started talking to me period." It was true. After the days they'd spent together after the incident, the older archer stopped by irregularly for the first couple weeks to exchange information and even go out hunting together. Or whatever it was they were doing. After the trail had been cold for a few weeks, though, he'd stopped coming and only occasionally messaged her about a small clue or whatever. But still, it was more than they'd ever been before.

Wally hadn't said anything to Artemis's comment and continued to eat for a minute for speaking again.

"What about the others? I mean, we've had like two missions and they've both been Tornado-issued, so in other words, total flops, and they haven't really been around the cave much… or maybe I haven't been around the cave much…."

"The aliens are still together, if that's what you're wondering," Artemis smirked, laying her bow down on the coffee table.

Wally shrugged in defeat, like it was inevitable.

"Zatanna's… ," Artemis continued. "Well, I actually don't really know how Zatanna's doing." She felt bad, not having talked to the girl in a long time, but she seemed to have found some friends around Happy Harbor. Artemis had actually found herself a little jealous when she'd first learned of this, but pushed it away. So what if she'd had the chance to be the girl's first friend. She deserved others who would actually be around to hang out with her and help her through her loss.

"But I talked to Barbara the other day," Artemis continued. "She's doing okay, besides, you know, pretending to be Robin every now and then as well as having lost her best friend in the middle of a fight. She's kinda beating herself up I guess."

"Oh." Wally swallowed before continuing. "I still can't believe Batman asked her to do that. You know, pretend to be Rob. I know that he can't let Gotham think something's happened to him, but still. She's new to this whole thing, and even if she's not really doing any actual crime-fighting, she's still swinging around the city with the Bat. I don't think I could do it."

Artemis just nodded. Thankfully Batman seemed to have scared the criminal world of Gotham into momentary silence and Barbara was only around to keep up Robin's image so to speak, but Wally was right: it was probably a terrifying job to have. And it was Gotham they were talking about; the baddies wouldn't stay quiet for much longer….

"I heard Kaldur's back in Atlantis for the week, or month or something." Wally said, bringing her out of her thoughts as he crumpled up the now-empty chip bag.

"Yeah, off escaping all this." Artemis somewhat regretted the words once they were out.

"He wants to find Rob just as much as the rest of us," Wally assured. "They've been friends for a while, but he doesn't know him like we do so it's hard for him to help."

"Roy doesn't know his real identity." Artemis wasn't sure if she was subconsciously looking for another fight or not, but her mouth sure seemed to want one.

"Yeah, but him and Roy are pretty close anyways." Wally, thankfully, didn't rise to the unintentional bait. He held the crumpled up ball of a chip bag one hand and sighted down to the garbage can in the corner before tossing the ball. It bounced off the rim and hit the floor. Wally's eyebrows knit together and he looked more disappointed about the miss than Artemis thought he should.

"Dick always said I aimed to short."

"He played basketball?" Artemis asked in somewhat disbelief.

"Not for school, but yeah, he was pretty good. Cheated with his acrobatics of course, but still decently good."

"Huh, never would've guessed by looking at the shrimp."

Wally smiled a bit, his brow relaxing.

"But really Wally?" Artemis continued, a smile growing on her own lips. "'Decently good'? Always knew Central schools were slacking."

"Always knew you'd grow into your snotty 'Gotham Academy' landscape," Wally shot back, his smile growing bigger.

"My landscape?" Artemis snorted. "I'm not a photograph."

"Photograph? Nah, you're more like a hieroglyph. With your vocabulary, you obviously predate the 'photograph'."

"Ha ha, very funny."

"I know. I'm a riot."

"Laugh it up, Ginger."

"That the best you got, Blondie?"

"In your dreams, Baywatch."

"Old and overused, kinda like yourself."

"You think you're awfully clever don't you _Wallace_."

"Goddess."

"Finally, the respect I deserve."

"Sure, if you wanna be an eternal virgin. But knowing you, you'll be single even if you offered money."

"Wally, I'm gonna get you!"

"Catch me if you can!"

oOo

It was growing steadily darker, the sky turning overcast as it often did in Gotham at night, the scene was just as foreboding, petrifying, and traumatizing as it always threatened to be, but Artemis couldn't help the small smile that kept running back to her lips, despite the atmospheres best efforts to chase it away. The memory of the night before was still too fresh, too strong, too _alive_ to _not _show in some way or another. His laugh was almost as clear in her head as it had been on Roy's couch. The fire in his eyes, as hope seeped back, unexplainably, into their lives, lit up her brain as bright as it had her heart as they gathered around the small coffee table laden with the source of their hope. The sound of his voice as he spoke to her, the feeling of his skin against hers as their shoulders brushed; it was still alive in the air even twenty-four hours later. And Artemis loved it.

At first she'd tried to rationalize it, all night long as she was unable to fall asleep after leaving Roy's apartment at two in the morning. It was just the adrenaline from having a goal, a purpose, a possibility, that they could be instrumental in finding Robin and bringing him home. The rush she felt when they touched, when he laughed, when she looked at him and he looked at her; it was because of her excitement at hearing Roy's plan. But eventually, when dawn came and she couldn't keep his stupid, freckled face out of her head, there was no rationalizing anymore. What she felt, she felt for dumb, idiotic, flirty Wally West. The stupid, hyperactive speedster with raging hormones and the cutest voice Artemis had ever heard. What was happening to her?

A cold drop of water landing square on the top of her head brought Artemis back to reality. It looked like it was going to rain soon and Artemis was at least two miles from her house. Besides, she needed some sleep tonight if she was going to have any energy for her meeting with Roy and Wally tomorrow. Hopefully one of them had found something, because she hadn't been able to focus all day.

It wasn't that Roy's plan wasn't worth it, because it was. In some inconceivable way, it actually seemed plausible. When he'd first pitched at them, Artemis had laughed. Of course they'd all talked about wanting to help find Robin, but she'd thought they'd all agreed that if Batman couldn't even find a lead, there was no way any of them would be able to do anything more than wander aimlessly through the world, which they were already pretty much doing. But then he'd glared at her and told her to shut and that the key to the idea was in the phrase 'if Batman couldn't find him'. Of course Artemis had looked at him like he was stupid and Wally had just sat there confused, but Roy had been patient, a new trait he seemed to have developed, and explained.

He'd said that if Batman couldn't find him, then maybe they could. If Batman couldn't find him through intimidation, tracking clues across the country, and digging out every laboratory that had ever been shut down, then maybe they could find him through methods that Batman wouldn't ever use. They could look in ways that Batman never could. Undercover, as friends to all the low-down criminals instead of as justice, investigating through the criminal underworld, finding leads and clues as curious low-lifes instead of as a bat from hell bent on terrifying justice. They could do what the Bats couldn't.

And Artemis liked it. She really liked it. Wally did too. Maybe it was just their anger and frustration at Batman for keeping them all so much in the dark that they wanted to get back at him, rebel against and show him up, but they'd agreed that it just might work. Sure it was crazy, sure it was a long shot, but it was the only shot they had. So Roy had continued with his idea that they look beyond Gotham, but not too far beyond. Batman had scoured the city as well as all the other 'major' cities of superheroes and supervillains and super-populations, as well as a few random places throughout the country that had somehow looked promising, but he'd ignored some places closer to home: Lesser known cities, with no history, no legacy, and nothing beyond your average, horrid, but perfectly _human_, crime.

And that's where they'd start, he'd said. So they went their separate ways, after a few hours of enjoying each other's company because, somewhere along this messy, horrible nightmare they'd all become best friends, as potentially sickening as it was. Roy had issued them the mission of digging up anything they could on science and labs in nearby cities and, while it was hardly anything to go on, they'd left with their hopes a little higher and their adrenaline pumping. Roy was good at pep talks.

But Artemis had spent the whole day doing horridly girly things while lying in bed and brushing her hair and hadn't found anything yet. Well, she'd gone to school as well, but she'd been so exhausted and yet so awake and hormonal that she didn't remember a thing from it. Now she was out in Gotham, as the last rays of sun faded into inky blackness, at the spot where everything had gone wrong. She visited often and, though she wasn't entirely sure why, it felt like she was paying her respects. Not that she thought Dick was dead or anything, but she just felt like she had to do it.

_Crunch_

Artemis spun around, whipping her bow out as she went, an arrow already nocked.

"Who's there?" She demanded, her voice low and menacing. "Show yourself."

A dark shape slowly materialized from the shadows of the alley to her left. As it made its way into the fading light of evening, Artemis saw that it was a man, his hands raised in surrender. The closer he got, the clearer the archer could make out his police uniform, his dark hair, his thin, but surprisingly young face, and the gun strapped to his hip, still in holster, completely unthreatening as his face promised no ill intent. Artemis slowly lowered her bow, but kept it loaded, pointed at the ground between them.

"What are you doing here?" She growled. There was no reason, of course, why he couldn't be here, but this was her place, and this stranger was strolling around like it wasn't the core of her every thought and feeling.

"It's alright; I'm on your side," The man assured her, keeping his hands raised, but looking like he wanted permission to put them down.

Artemis narrowed her eyes. Did she really look like a hero, pointing an arrow at a cop? Things had sure changed….

"That still doesn't answer my question." She replied, but with far less malice in her voice. Things had changed indeed.

"I'm just doing my job." The cop replied, apparently taking her tone as the permission he was looking for as he lowered his hands and walked up closer to her, coming completely out of the shadows.

Artemis raised an eyebrow. He wasn't half bad looking.

"And your job is?"

"I'm on patrol right now." He spoke amiably, with a slight air of nonchalance, but something about his face didn't seem quite right….

"You're patrolling way out in this alley? On foot?" Artemis asked, her tone skeptical as well as suspicious.

"Crime knows no boundaries," the cop shrugged, a slightly amused tone in his voice.

"Uh huh." Artemis gave him her best 'I'm-not-impressed' face, while subconsciously unloading her bow and replacing the arrow in her quiver.

The cop shrugged again and Artemis had to hand it to him: he had a good poker face. But something about his story just didn't seem to add up. Why would a cop, apparently on 'patrol', which Artemis knew for cops meant driving around in a squad car eating donuts and playing pinball on the computer attached to the dash board, be doing out in a deserted, or nearly so, alley as night was growing strong. Especially a cop so young. He wasn't a detective, she could tell by his uniform (she'd spent more than enough time running from and fooling cops to know which was which), so he couldn't be out here on investigation, unless he was out against his commanding officer's wishes. They didn't just send rookies out into the back alleys of Gotham at nighttime.

"Listen, Cop-y, I'm not stupid." Artemis put her hands on her hips and adopted an air of authority. "It's my job to save people, and to keep people safe so they don't need saving, and no rookie has any business in a back alley like this at night. You get jumped, you're dead. I'm not an idiot, so don't play me like a fool with your 'patrol' shtick. I'll take you back to your car and we can forget this ever happened, capeesh?" Oh how Artemis loved playing the rough and tough vigilante.

The cop sighed, though looked neither like a rookie caught red-handed nor like a rookie full of himself and annoyed at interference in his great plan to get promoted.

"If you really must know," he said, looking straight at her. "I'm investigating."

"That's what I thought," Artemis sighed, rolling her eyes. Wait, when had she started caring about Gotham cops?

"Really?" The cop looked mildly surprised. "Then maybe I ought to tell you."

"Tell me what? What you're 'investigating'?"

"Well, I assume you know. About Robin."

Suddenly Artemis was on guard, her hand reaching back for the arrow recently discarded. "What about him?"

"About his… absence." The cop spoke as though he wasn't entirely sure how much Artemis knew and the archer realized he was a lot smarter than she originally thought.

"Why would you say that?" Artemis asked casually, hoping that if he really did know something, he'd realize was she was asking. "I saw him just last night."

"He was kidnapped, from this very spot." The cop spoke with complete confidence. "You know this. That's why you're here."

And then Artemis found she was exhausted and couldn't keep up the game. She let her defenses drop, her hands falling to her sides, her bow hanging loosely in her grasp. He knew the truth, that much was obvious, so what was the use trying to pretend otherwise?

"Fine, you're right. About everything."

"You've been looking for him too, haven't you." His voice was soft and it wasn't a question.

"Wouldn't make a difference either way." The words slipped out before she could stop them. _Waitta sound depressed and mopey in front of the cop!_

"Batman hasn't had any luck either, has he?" Now the cop sounded professional, and Artemis was grateful for that.

"Nobody has. He's disappeared without a trace. But I shouldn't be telling you all this. You're not even supposed to know."

"I was on duty that night at the station." The cop momentarily got a faraway look in his eyes. "A disturbance was called in and Commissioner Gordon asked me to accompany him. I don't think he realized Batman was involved; it didn't sound like anything spectacular. So we were driving and Gordon got a call and then he told us to pull over two blocks away from the site. He got out, told us to wait there and we weren't to follow him under any circumstances unless he called for backup. I guess he got a heads up from Batman or something that he wasn't supposed to be there.

"So I waited for fifteen minutes and then got out and followed him. I got to the scene after Robin was gone, but I saw Gordon talking to Batman and I heard Batman say something like 'don't tell anyone' and I saw a bunch of the sidekicks there and then I saw Superman land and Flash run in and everyone looked like they'd had their hearts torn out or something."

_Pretty much, _Artemis thought.

"So I looked into it. I realized Bruce Wayne and his ward had suddenly disappeared out of country and I'd had a suspicion about his connection to Batman for a few months. Then Robin was gone for a week and Batman was acting crazy – crazier than usual – and the criminals were scared and when 'Robin' returned, I could tell something was up. I watched 'Robin' for a couple nights and realized it wasn't the same person. Not even the same gender."

Artemis couldn't help but smirk a little.

"So that's when I realized Robin was gone and the scene I'd witnessed that night was his capture. Gordon doesn't know I know and I haven't told anyone else."

"Good."

Artemis was impressed with his skills, she couldn't deny it. He'd made the connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman and he'd probably never met either. Still, here he was, trusting the information to some chick in spandex with a bow.

"But why are you telling me all this?" Artemis challenged. "Just 'cause I know what happened to Robin doesn't mean I know Batman's secrets. What if I'm the enemy?" The last bit might've been a little over-the-top, but whatever.

"You're Artemis." The cop said it like it was obvious. "I know Robin trusts you, and by extent, Batman too. They're the reason you're not running around with the League of Shadows."

Okay, this guy was starting to freak her out. Either he was a serious stalker or….

"Robin fan-boy much?" Artemis smirked. For some reason the idea that he knew about her and her past didn't bother her as much as she expected. For some reason she trusted this clever, attractive young cop.

The cop just smiled at her remark.

"Okay, so Rookie." Artemis continued. "If you're investigating, what have you found?"

"Actually, I recently got a tip from someone in Blüdhaven about some rather _unusual _orders have been consistently placed at a lab supply store on the corner of Kennedy and Twelfth."

Artemis felt her heartbeat kick into high gear and she almost started shaking. She couldn't bring herself to speak but only listened as the cop continued.

"In the past month I've spent time undercover, when I'm not on the job, around Gotham as well as the neighboring cities to try to gather any information I can about unusual happenings relating to young boys and underground science labs. I tell them I'm looking for my brother who got kidnapped." The cop smiled a bit. "I'm actually not sure why or how the tip about the lab supply store got to me, but the list of supplies ordered kind of makes sense. It's from a private name and not a company, and the store has no qualms about dealing with the underworld…."

Artemis found that her hands had started literally shaking somewhere in his explanation and her voice shook right along with them as she asked: "How did you know he was kidnapped by a scientist?"

"I um," he looked rather sheepish here. "I found some files about it."

Artemis's eyes widened but she didn't say anything. He hacked into Batman's files? Or maybe they were Robin's. Either way….

"So you-so you think this might relate to Robin somehow?" She asked tentatively, holding her breath.

"I know it's a long shot, but the list of supplies…." He paused before continuing. "I got the information from an anonymous source, so it wasn't even one of my regular informers. The list of supplies included the typical test tubes and chemicals, but also feeding tubes, IV's, and feeding formulas - only enough ordered each time to keep a small, thirteen year old boy alive until the next order came in…. There were also chemicals used in powerful anesthetics and sensory and neurological suppressants…. It's not necessarily good news, but it's the only lead I've gotten so far…."

Artemis took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart and mind. The cop was right, it wasn't good news at all, but it was a lead. A long shot, a long, long shot, but still a shot. It was all they had.

"Good work, Rookie." Artemis took another deep breath, knowing Roy would kill her. "Welcome to the team."

"The name's John Blake, and thanks."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and please review!  
**

**Alex out.  
**


	4. Blake

**A/N: **

Speedy update! I hope this chapter doesn't feel too rushed – I wrote it in one day, which is unusual for me.

Thank you to all the followers and favoriters and especially to**: XxNeonShadowsxX, Handmaiden of Awesomeness, secret00, KaliAnn, Zeldalsis, SevenSilences, fluffsterzz, RollingUpHigh, ariaT27 (3 times!), Blaze Grayson A.K.A. Ice Flame **for reviewing! You guys rock!

* * *

"You did what?"

Artemis was tempted to cover her ears as Roy's voice echoed throughout the dingy basement/cellar they'd confiscated below Roy's apartment. With the reasonable security Wally had installed and the multiple computers and monitors and other pieces of fancy tech Roy had bought, the place made a decent headquarters for yelling at one another in. Because, to be completely honest, that was a large part of what the three did when they were together.

"He had a lead!" Artemis growled back, not yelling like Roy, because she was so much more mature, but still sounding defiant. "A decent one too! Better than anything any of us have come up with. Besides, he's a cop."

"A cop?" Roy didn't yell, but simply stared at her in disbelief. "You of all people should know that in Gotham, that's worse than a criminal half the time."

"More than half," Artemis snorted.

"Exactly my point!"

"But he wasn't corrupt."

"What, could you just see it in his eyes?" Roy mocked, crossing his arms and glaring down at her.

"I'm not stupid, Roy Harper! I grew up in Gotham! I've been chased by cops and I've paid off cops and I know a corrupt one when I see him! He knew-" Artemis stopped. Roy didn't know. "He knew Robin was kidnapped, even with Batman keeping it a secret. Batman! And he wants to help find him."

"Unless he's working for Donovan." Roy's voice was low. "Maybe he's trying to lead us off the scent. Ever thought of that?"

"Ugh!" Artemis groaned. She was about ready to deck the older archer. "Get your head out of your butt and think! What's the worst that could happen? We get dragged on a wild goose chase and-"

"Get led into a trap and gunned down. Or-"

"Stop it guys!" Wally was suddenly between them, holding his hands out to his sides like he was trying to break up a fight. Well he was, but not a physical one. Yet. "Just stop. This isn't helping Rob."

Artemis sighed, but deflated and watched as Roy slowly did the same.

"Just… this is the only lead we've got, like it or not." Wally glared at Roy. "And Arty's right, this is first thing we've had… ever. And I think we should take it."

"What if it's a trap?"

"Don't be an idiot," Wally groaned. "Why would anyone bother to set a trap for us? We've found nothing and all we've done is spend all our free time locked up in a dark basement moping about how we've found nothing. We're like lame, emo, ginger Batman's without the fear factor and none of the detective skills."

"Speak for yourself." Artemis hissed.

"I'm pretty sure Donovan doesn't even know we exist." Wally continued. "I think we should trust this cop. If he figured everything out on his own, he deserves a shot. Besides, it's all we have." The last part was quieter and almost regretful.

Roy huffed, grumbled and acted like a PMS-ing girl before finally throwing his hands up in the air like a soap opera and sighing: "Fine. Fine! We'll give it a shot. Just one. If he turns out to be a fluke, I'm in charge of everything forever, deal?"

"Fine." Artemis glared at him.

"Great!" Wally looked too pleased with himself. "So when do we get to meet this John Blake guy?"

"Tonight," Artemis announced. "I told him I'd meet him tonight on the west side near the city limits. Then we can take him back here and hear the whole story and make a plan. The sooner we get on with this the better."

"You want to show him our HQ?" Roy looked appalled.

"Oh stick it, Roy. This is a basement."

oOo

Wally took a deep breath, trying to calm the jitters that ran through his body, causing his arms and legs to vibrate as he leaned against the wall of the parking garage. They'd been waiting at the designated meeting spot for ten minutes and so far there'd been no sign of Artemis's cop. She'd assured them once already that he would be here and now sat on a low concrete wall to Wally's left, her phone out and the bluish light illuminating her face, turning her dark skin pale as the moon. There were dark circles under her eyes, but Wally saw those same circles every time he looked in the mirror. They were part of them now and had been for a while.

Roy was a few feet away, half sitting half leaning on the hood of his shiny, red sports car that Wally was dying to take for a test drive but would never be allowed to 'cause Roy was like a mother with that thing. The archer had a scowl on his face and kept checking his watch and sighing audibly. He and Artemis were having an on and off staring match every time he sighed and Wally was beginning to feel suffocated by the tension in the air.

"Alright Artemis," Roy straightened up, stretching. "I don't know about you, but I've had enough waiting. Where's the cop?"

"He's coming. Keep your pants on." Artemis didn't even bother looking up and Wally felt his heart race a little at the nonchalant tone in her voice. It was beautiful.

And then, as if it were a perfectly planned novel or play, the sounds of a car engine echoed from behind them and they all turned as twin headlights illuminated the cracked road leading to the parking garage. An undercover police car (a very nice one, Wally noted) pulled up the long stretch of road before parking in front of the heroes and quickly switching off its lights and engine. The door was cracked open and a man stepped out, dressed like a cop, but subtly so, without bright, blaring badges or colors. He walked around the car and came to stand before them.

"Sorry I'm late." The man was young, Wally noted, with a young-sounding voice as well. "There was a robbery on Seagull and Ninth."

"What a hero," Roy muttered under his breath, earning a swift kick from Artemis as she jumped from her perch and sauntered over.

Wally got up and sped over until he stood in front of the cop, extending his hand. "Hi, Wa – er, Kid Flash, nice to meet you."

"John Blake." John Blake shook Wally's hand. "Nice to meet you too."

"This is Red Arrow," Artemis told him, motioning to Roy.

Roy nodded, but made no move towards the cop. "Tell us what you know."

"Uh, Roy?" Wally asked. "Weren't we gonna take him back to HQ?"

"Yeah." Artemis answered for him. "Blake, get in your car and follow us. You have our trust. Break it and we break you."

Wally felt tingles go up his spine at the threat. Tingles of pleasure. She was so hot when she was angry.

They all got into their respective cars, Roy glaring at Wally when he smiled hopefully towards the driver's seat, and took off, driving towards Star City. Thankfully it was only a little over an hour from Gotham, but with Roy's driving they could make it in forty-five minutes tops. Wally kept glancing back over his shoulder as they sped down the highway, making sure the cop was able to keep up. He did a good job and Wally had a humorous moment when he imagined Blake pulling Roy over. The archer would be pissed.

When they finally made it back to Roy's apartment and their super-secret basement, Wally was nearly asleep in his seat. He hadn't gotten a good night's rest in a long time, and he'd gotten pretty good at falling asleep in any position. Once Roy pulled into the back parking lot, Wally shot out of the car, shaking himself in attempts to wake up. He wanted to be one hundred percent conscious for what was to come.

Blake parked his own car a couple spots down from Roy and got out, his belt full of police-y weapons glistening dully in the light from the streetlamp. Wally was glad he was wearing his camo-gear as a group of teenaged heroes hanging around an apartment complex in the nicer end of Star was sure to garner a few odd looks. Blake walked over to join them, seeming completely at ease in the situation, something that impressed Wally. Most cops, young ones at least, either were in total reverence in the presence of sidekicks or else in total disrespect.

Roy turned to Blake and gave him a hard once-over with his eyes, his scowl, seeming to be permanently fixed in place since they'd left for Gotham, deepening when his gaze raked over the gun resting in holster at Blake's hip. He didn't say anything about it though, and instead said gruffly:

"There are three of us, one of you. We're trained, you use a Taser. We fight crime for a living, you drive a car and eat donuts. If you are anything less than what you say you are, we can take you down so hard you'll regret ever leaving your mother, got it?"

Wally shuddered a bit at Roy's words. The red-haired archer had been getting progressively more violent in the past month and, though Wally could hardly blame him, it was starting to freak him out a little. Seeing him attempt to intimidate the cop who so far hadn't offered any reason for suspicion, rattled the speedster a little. He'd known Roy practically since he'd become Kid Flash and, while they'd had their spats, they'd always been close. Watching him slowly go down a dark path, one that had started even before Robin's capture, was slightly unnerving.

"I understand." Blake replied, in all seriousness. To his credit, he didn't look intimidated at all, only warned, and his nod of understanding was professional. He was less of a rookie than he looked.

Grunting, Roy turned and led the group down a flight of concrete steps hugging the apartments to a plain, metal door. Roy went up to the door and started punching a code into the keypad over the handle. There was a grating sound and then wall to the right slowly swung inward, revealing a dimly lit passageway of moist concrete and spider webs.

Without a backwards glance Roy ducked inside, his boots making small slapping sounds as they hit the damp floor. Artemis followed him and then Blake and Wally took up the rear, glancing over his shoulder before tapping in the code on the keypad on the inside of the wall-door and watching it fall shut before hurrying after the others.

The hallway was illuminated by a random scattering of fluorescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and led to another flight of steps flanked by a peeling metal railing on both sides. The whole area was gross and moldy and gave Wally the shivers, not to mention the spiders that dropped down onto your head at random times. After the steps there was another door, this one actually a door and not a wall, with a handprint sensor on the wall to the right, something Wally had managed to make from blueprints Rob had once sent him to use for his room. He'd never gotten around to that, but was glad he had them still.

Roy pressed his hand to the sensor and after a second there was a click as the lock on the door sprang free and the archer grasped the handle and yanked it open. Wally wished he could see Blake's face as they stepped into the main room, tricked out with computers and monitors and even a small table stocked with a few medical supplies and the TV in the corner with the couch that Wally liked sitting on with Artemis and the refrigerator in the back that Wally was a huge fan of and the screen that they could use for calls to the League or the Mountain (it wasn't used much, to say the least) and everything that Wally had worked so hard on setting up. Because with Robin gone, he was the new tech-geek.

Wally imagined Blake looked stunned and he smirked a little as he sped over to the fridge and pulled open the door, grabbing a cold piece of pizza and a coke. The two archers had gathered Blake around the holo-table thingy that was in the middle of the room, surrounded by couches and chairs. It was one of Wally's favorite parts of the HQ because he knew that the Batcave didn't have one and neither did Mt. Justice. It was a holographic display that was horizontal like a table (with an actual table under it so it could be used for snacks and stuff too) and could be used for planning or, in theory, surfing the web, looking up crime databases, whatever, but they hadn't quite managed to get it to act like a computer yet and hence was mostly just for planning.

The holo-table was the main part of the room and was surrounded by the monitors and computers and the stupid office chair that Roy had brought in for the giant main computer that was kind of like the Bat-computer but not anywhere near as awesome, but still awesomer than most computers. The TV was in one corner, behind the tech, the med area in another and the food area in the other two corners. It was a nice place and Wally loved it.

Wally sped over the one of the couches and collapsed into it, letting himself sink into the worn cushions. Roy hadn't wanted to spend a bunch of money on the furniture (even though he was filthy rich from Oliver's fortune) because he said he blew a ton of it on the tech, so the couches were from yard sales and the side of the road. Wally had approved them all before they'd picked them up, though, so they were comfortable. He propped his feet up on the actual table below the holo-table which was glowing a blank blue at the moment, and smiled a little as Artemis sat down beside him. Roy sat in a chair across from them and Blake took the chair next Roy.

"So, whaddya think of HQ, Blake?" Wally asked, popping open his soda.

"Impressive," The cop mused, turning his head to look around the room.

Wally smirked, taking a large bite of pizza and casually draping his arm around the back of the couch and behind Artemis's head. "Yeah, pretty sweet, huh? We built it ourselves."

"Stop gloating." Artemis smacked his hand.

"We're not here to show-off our secrets to this cop," Roy added, removing his quiver and bow from his back. "We're here to hear what he has to say. Get talking." He turned his attention to Blake.

"Alright." Blake sat forward in the chair and rested his elbows on his knees, his face serious. "Like I told Artemis, I've been undercover since I learned about Robin's capture, gathering info and gaining the trust of those who would be the first to hear about anything regarding illegal lab activity. For a while, I found nothing. It was like he'd disappeared. But recently, I received an anonymous tip that there was someone who wanted to talk to me. He didn't want to meet in Gotham so I met him in Bridgeport.

"It was dark that night and our meeting spot was far from any lights, so I could barely make him out. He wasn't one of my informants – I'd never met him before. He was tall, well-built, but in lean way. He told me had information about who I was looking for. I was disguised as Jason Bard, a small-time criminal looking for his little brother, but this man told me he knew I was a cop. That he'd been watching me. He handed me an order placed at a lab supply store and told me to look into it and before I could saying anything, he was gone.

"So I was planning on looking into it like he said when I met Artemis." Blake finished and sat back a bit, his gaze going to each of them in turn. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and threw it on the table. Wally snatched it up and began running his eyes over the list of lab supplies printed on it. His breath caught as he saw the chemicals, all lined up in perfect order to create – he shuddered at the thought.

"And you never paused to consider that it could be a trap?" Roy asked, his face hard. Wally looked up, swallowing his fear and panic, pushing it away to deal with later.

"Roy's a little obsessed in traps right now," Artemis told Blake apologetically and Wally snickered a little, still fighting down the unwanted feelings. He replaced the paper on the table.

"I'm being cautious." Roy rounded on her. "We're no good to Robin dead."

Artemis looked like she was going to retort but reined it in and relaxed back into the couch and Wally's arm, glaring daggers at the other archer.

"I did consider the possibility of a trap," Blake nodded, acting like there hadn't been an interruption. "But, unless the man had some serious grudge against the Gotham PD and wanted to take us down one by one, I saw no reason that he'd want to trap me."

"Because a criminal feeding information to a cop is normal," Roy growled sarcastically. "What if he was working for Donovan?"

"It was a chance I was willing to take."

"There are far too many people taking chances around here."

"Maybe it's time you took one!" Artemis stood up, her face flushed in anger.

"I let an unknown cop into HQ!" Roy exclaimed. "How much more of a chance do you expect me to take!"

"He's not unknown! I met him!"

"And I'm supposed to trust a cop just because you 'met' him once?"

"You're supposed to trust me and my judgment!"

"Not if it's poor judgment!"

Roy was standing now too and Wally was getting fed up.

"Guys!" The speedster shouted with a sigh. "Let's not do this again."

The archers glared but sat back down, much to Wally's surprise. Maybe he was scarier than he thought!

"Well then what do you think Wally?" Artemis asked, staring hard at him.

"I think… that uh… umm… I think we should take a vote!" He got out at last.

Roy stared at him and Artemis raised an eyebrow.

"We'll vote on it." Wally continued with more confidence. "I think that ol' John Blakey's onto something. The list of lab supplies, the feeding dosage, it makes sense. Sure it's kind of a long shot, but we've already been over this; we don't have anything else."

"I like Wally's idea." Artemis shot, sitting back down again. "I vote we go for it, so yes."

"Me too. Yes."

Roy's nostrils flared but he took a deep a breath closed his eyes behind his domino mask. There was a long moment of silence and then Roy turned and walked around the couches towards the kitchen-like area. He stayed there, his back to them in silence for a long time and Wally fought the urge to fidget and throw away his empty soda can. Finally the archer turned and walked back, taking his seat again. He looked up, running his eyes over all three of them before finally nodding.

"I vote yes."

Wally felt his face stretch into a smile and Artemis smiled too, resting her cheek on his shoulder and giving Wally shivers. John Blake nodded, his face lighting up and Wally found it impossible to believe the man before them wanted anything except to help rescue Robin. He cared; Wally believed it wholeheartedly and he hoped that the others did too.

"_I got my first real six string, bought it at the five and dime. Played it till my fingers bled, was summer of '69. Me and some guys from school, had a-"_*****

Wally sped over to the kitchen area and snatched up the phone he'd left lying on the small table next to the fridge. He quickly hit the answer button and shoved it to his ear.

"Hello?"

"_Hey Kid."_

"Oh hey Uncle Barry!"

"_What are you doing?" _

"Uh, just some homework." Wally looked around, as if hoping to find a clue what he should be doing right now.

"_Wow, okay." _Barry sounded surprised, but didn't question it, so Wally assumed he'd picked a reasonable choice. _"I was just calling to let you know that Bats contacted to the Watchtower."_

"Really? When?"

"_About five minutes ago." _

Wally glanced down at his watch and suddenly his uncle's reaction to homework made sense. "At two in the morning?" He asked.

"_One fifty-two to be exact."_

"What'd he say?" Wally was starting to vibrate a little in excitement.

"_Not much. He talked to Superman and Supes said he just basically said he was going undercover and not to contact him at all under any circumstances unless the planet is in physical danger of being irreparably damaged and there's absolutely no else who can handle it."_

"That's it? No update?"

"_He said it's still negative." _

"But he must have a lead, right? If he's going undercover and all…."

"_He didn't say." _

"Meaning he probably didn't." Wally couldn't keep the dejected tone out of his voice.

"_Meaning he's a Bat and doesn't share well with others." _

Wally laughed a little. "Okay Uncle Barry, thanks for calling."

"_Sure thing kid." _His uncle's voice was sympathetic. _"Keep at that homework." _

"Yeah, sure."

"_See you soon." _

"Yeah."

"_Bye."_

"Bye."

Wally hung up and put the phone back on the table. So Batman still hadn't found anything. But they had. They had a lead. Batman might not, but they did. It was enough to keep Wally's spirits up as he walked back into the main part of the room, prepared for the barrage of questions. After he related everything his uncle had told them, they set to work on a plan. They were going to follow the lead, investigate it and see where it went. Batman might not have anything, but they did. And Wally was glad, too, because he wasn't sure if he could handle it if they didn't.

oOo

"Hush little Robin, don't say a word. Merry's gonna buy you a mocking bird. And if that Mockingbird won't sing, Merry's gonna dissect it with Doc's scalpel thing…."

Merida held up the scalpel for him to see, letting the light glance off of it and make it sparkle. It was beautiful, shiny and sparkly like a jewel and ten times more deadly. Depending, of course, on how one measured deadly. Merida smiled a little, her own voice ringing softly around the room. She had a beautiful voice and she knew it. She loved to hear it echo gracefully around the white room and she guessed that the boy would too.

She reached out one hand and stroked the soft face with her thin fingers, chipped and cracked red nail polish catching the light of the blinding bulb on the ceiling. She'd worked so hard on her nails and all of the fiddling with levers and switches and gadgets the last night had scratched away her work. She'd complained to Donovan about it, but he'd ignored her. He was so handsome when he ignored people. His nose turned up and away, his eyes half lidded as he stared down at whatever he was working on, his mouth drawn into a serious line. He looked almost normal – almost sane. But he was all the more handsome because he wasn't.

The face under her touch moved a bit, a small, pitiful noise coming out of the pale, cracked lips. Merida leaned closer, as if to hear what it was trying to say.

"What is it, sweetie? I can't hear you? Oh, what is that? You want me to play with your hair? Oh, of course my little one."

Merida's fingers found the inky black hair and began to run themselves through it, the greasy texture lending to a few snarls since the last time.

"It looks like you need a bath." Merida mused, continuing to pull through the tangled mess. "And maybe a haircut. All in due time, of course."

As the fingers worked through the hair, strands came out, littering the board around the head like black tinsel.

"You know, the Doctor wants to speed up the process, little one. He wants to finish soon. He's tired of waiting for your little body to be ready."

Merida's eyes swept over the body lying before her. The face was pale, deathly so, with huge place pits around the closed eyes. The cheeks were hollow and gaunt and the mouth was thin and pale as well. The large cut over the right side of the face was still red and angry, kept shut with a few thick, black stitches, but otherwise as raw as when it was first made. The body was emaciated, almost unbelievably thin and malnourished through the torn gown draped around it, with bones sticking out everywhere. Sometimes Merida would sit next to him at night and count his ribs, tracing over the broken ones with her finger. The right arm and hand were black with bruising that didn't fade, more stitches encircling the wrist, holding together the severing cut that had sliced through the bone and muscle alike. Donovan said that Sixty-two had done a well enough job of reattaching it, but Merida still glared at him whenever the gangly, whining experiment was around. The knee was black as well, and swollen, lying out of place on the table, bent at a sickening angle. It would all be healed, the doctor said, when the DNA fusion was complete.

"Are ready to be finished, my little one?" Merida asked, finally removing her fingers from the hair. "Are you ready to become big and strong? Are you ready to fulfill your debts? You're wanted by many, you know. Many people out in the big world want you. They want you to do things for them. Things only you can do because you'll be big and strong. And the Doctor will be so happy when you're big and strong. He'll be so happy.

"But not me." Merida looked sad now, fingering the faded, dirty gown covering the body. "I won't be happy. Because once you're big and strong, you won't be my little one anymore. You'll be with others. Others who only want you because you're big and strong. But I don't care if you're big and strong. I don't care if you are broken and have lots of bones and don't smash things and kill people. I don't care if you lay there and breathe badly and have needles in your arms and bags full of colorful liquid going into you. But the Doctor doesn't like you like this. He wants you to change. So he's going to change you. And I'm going to lose you."

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*****Wally's ringtone is Summer of '69 by Bryan Adams.

**Thanks for reading and please review!**

**Alex out.**


	5. Out of State, Out of Mind

**A/N: **Another quick update! I hope I can keep this up! The only time I have to write is on the weekends, but I've managed to write another chapter every weekend for the past three weeks, so I will try to keep it up! Of course, if I have a really busy weekend it might not happen, but I'll do my best!

Thank you for all of the amazing reviews! I would like to thank: **XxNeonShadowsxX, SevenSilences, KaliAnn, ariaT27, fluffsterzz, jamiefin, Zeldalsis, Brightpath2, **and **ts****tripe00** for reviewing the last chapter! I love when you guys tell me predictions you have and stuff! Thanks again!

Do you guys want me to start responding to reviews here again? I was going to try to respond over PM, but I've been kind of failing at it... What do you think?

Now onto the chapter:

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"_Out of state."_

Barbara never thought she'd be so glad to hear those words – especially about Batman – but now, she could barely contain, well, it wasn't necessarily joy, but maybe relief. Batman had left the night before, calling only briefly to tell her that he was leaving and that she was not to leave her house except for school and that the Batcave was strictly off-limits, as was the manor. She'd rolled her eyes, telling him he wasn't her dad, but secretly, she was sighing so heavily in relief her secret lungs almost passed out from lack of air.

Batman had some Justice Leaguer on call for truly heinous crimes, but was leaving the general safety of Gotham for the cops. It was something Barbara never would have thought she'd see in her lifetime: the Bat abandoning his city in the hands of the GCPD. Of course Barbara trusted her dad to do his job, but with some estimates saying that at least eighty, if not ninety percent of the cops in Gotham were corrupt in some way or another, it didn't really bolster one's confidence that there was one trustworthy Commissioner in charge of the arguably dirtiest city in the world.

But Barbara was still relieved. 'Robin' was forbidden leave 'his' house and Batman wasn't going to be around for maybe even a week. When she'd been so ready to jump into the crime-fighting business, she hadn't bargained for what she'd gone through the last month. Robin's kidnapping had changed Batman and when he'd first asked her – more like threatened her – to come play Robin with him, she'd been hesitant. She'd heard of the recently more violent nature of the vigilante from her father and she wasn't so sure she was willing to parade around with him in tights all night long. But she'd agreed, because she was doing it for Dick. Sure she'd come to regret it almost every night, but she was doing it for Dick.

Now that Batman was gone though, she was free. There would be no more shivering in the wintery Gotham air because heck, Robin's costume could be cold. No more watching as Batman beat on poor, mostly helpless thugs, all the while screaming about scientists and madmen. No more running along behind a giant German Shepherd (who was the size of a small bear) as he tracked down a scent. No more getting knocked around in combat practice in a dark, dank cave because, if she was going to help Batman, she had to be trained. No more late nights and black tights and violent fights as she shoved her hair into a black wig and pretended to be a boy. Batman was terrifying and she was sure he hadn't always been like this. She hoped he found Robin soon, though the trail, already chilly, kept getting colder and colder….

"_Stay close." The voice was harsh, even more gravely than usual due to overuse._

_Barbara just nodded, subconsciously pulling the fabric of the cape closer around her shoulders. It was the middle of winter and, though no snow had fallen, the temperatures were frigid at night. The Robin suit was insulated, and thankfully the short sleeves had been traded in for long sleeves, but it was still a light fabric, made to be airy for vigorous activity and flexible for acrobatic combat, and was ill-suited for late night stakeouts. _

_A wet nose brushed against Barbara's neck and she ran a hand down the soft fur of the dog next to her. The animal sniffed her hand briefly before whining almost inaudibly as it wasn't the scent he'd been long trained to find. Barbara patted his head sympathetically. She couldn't imagine what it was like for the dog, being drilled every day to track down the scent of a boy he'd never met, and never being able to find him. Batman was hard on the animal, not in an abusive way, but in the way that he forced the animal to share in his obsession with finding Robin at all costs. Barbara wouldn't be surprised if, when Robin was found, the dog didn't let him out of his sight. If Ace lasted that long. _

"_Target acquired," Batman growled, already moving. "Drop in left wing." _

_Barbara moved to the left, peering over the edge of the roof. There was a dark van in the alley below with a small group of men circled around the back. Two of them were sliding open the hatch in the back as more men started moving in from the shadows, carrying unlabeled boxes. Barbara knew what was in the boxes, as they'd been Batman's one driving force throughout the past six days: illegal lab supplies being shipped off to some anonymous buyer for a generous sum of money. The supplies had been stolen from a lab in Gotham downtown, known for its work with the water pollution project, but the exact identity of the supplies was so far unknown. Batman saw it as a lead and had been planning the bust over the past couple days, obsessing over it to the point Alfred had called Barbara warning her that Bruce hadn't slept in at least forty-eight hours. _

_Barbara steeled herself before leaping off the edge of the building, flipping once in midair before landing near the front of the van. She glanced over to the other end of the alley and just barely saw a flash of darker black against the nearly black shadows as Batman concealed himself. She waited a moment until she heard the minute scraping of Ace's paws on the concrete ground. A few of the men paused at the sound, a few drawing their guns as they readied for a cop. Barbara almost felt sorry for them. _

_And then Batman flew out of his hiding place, his feet and fists flying as he took down the men, harshly beating them to the ground. Once the few random rounds of bullets ceased, Barbara took that as her cue that Batman had disarmed the thugs and she was free to kick some butt. She vaulted onto the hood of the van and then onto the roof, racing across it until she leaped off the back, landing on an unsuspecting head and successfully knocking the man out with a quick knock to the head. _

_Ace was ramming into criminals left and right, growling in their faces and ripping at their clothes with his teeth, creating a mass panic. Barbara smirked as she side-kicked a man in the head, sending him flying into a wall before elbowing him in a pressure point and watching as he collapsed into a limp heap. Hearing a surprise attacker behind her, Barbara kicked off the wall, launching into a backflip and sailing into the thug, carrying him to the ground under her body. _

_She enjoyed this; this fighting for justice, against opponents easy to beat, but still amusing to fight. This part of the gig was what she'd been looking for when she'd first begged Robin to train her. But she knew it wouldn't last. The thugs were almost all taken care of, just a few left near Batman and Barbara felt a twinge of pity as the Dark Knight moved towards them, the whites of his mask glowing in anger. This was the part she hated. _

_Batman grabbed the nearest one by the neck, lifting him bodily in the air before slamming his head against the brick wall, a horrible cracking sound accompanying the action. He then dropped the man and moved onto his partner, delivering a solid knee into his stomach and Barbara could almost hear the air whoosh from his lungs. As the man doubled over in agony, Batman latched onto his throat as well, lifting him up in the air and pinning against the wall. Instead of slamming him into the wall, however, he hammered a fist into his face, and then again, repeatedly until the man was whimpering and begging. Barbara started to feel sick as the man's nose started gushing blood and his eyes started swelling shut. _

"_Who are you delivering this equipment to?" The Bat roared into his face, accentuating his demand with a swift punch to the man's hand as it rose to scrabble at his neck. "Tell me!" _

_The man whimpered and coughed, his uninjured hand going to wrap around his stomach. Barbara suspected that he was the leader of the gang, though how Batman knew, she wasn't sure. He wasn't anything impressive, buff maybe, but otherwise unremarkable and dressed in the same dark garb as the others. _

"_I asked you a question!" Another fist flew into the man's jaw, cracking solidly against tooth and bone. _

"_I-I'm not telling." The man choked out and Barbara had to give him points for bravery. Idiocy too. _

_Instead of answering, Batman dropped the man, only to kick him violently in the side. He continued to beat on the man, though Barbara could tell every hit was specifically executed to hurt excruciatingly, but still keep the man conscious and able to communicate. At the sound of clacking, Barbara looked to her side to see Ace standing next to her and she laid a hand on the dog as they watched the brutal spectacle together. Barbara rubbed the dog's head as he started to whine; whether it was from want to join his master or from distress at the violence, Barbara wasn't sure. She didn't really know much about the intelligence of dogs, but she wanted to believe Ace was actually a kind animal and hadn't taken to the ways of its trainer already. _

"_Stop!" The plea was choked and almost too quiet for Barbara to hear. The beating stopped as a gloved hand reached down and picked up the sorry criminal again. "L-Luthor," he stuttered out. "The supplies are for Lex Luthor."_

_For a minute Barbara thought Batman was going to let him go. _

"_You lie!" _

_But she was wrong. _

"_H-honest, I'm not lying. Luthor p-placed the order. We were just about to d-deliver them to Lex-Corp-"_

_And then the beating picked up again. "Don't lie to me!" Batman roared, his hits growing progressively harder and harder. _

"_P-please…. I-I'm n-not lying…."_

_And finally Barbara could watch no more. She climbed into the back of the van, hoping beyond hope that just maybe there was a delivery address somewhere in the truck. There was. There actually was. Maybe the thugs figured it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to be caught with supplies for Lex-Corp – for that was what the address was for – but whatever their reasons, Barbara was thankful. She ripped the piece of paper off from where it was taped to the dashboard and bolted out of the truck._

_The man was crying now, sobbing that he had no idea, that it really was for Lex-Corp, that he was just making the delivery and didn't really know anything. Barbara steeled herself, taking a deep breath for shouting:_

"_Stop." _

_Batman stopped, fist in midair, the front of the man's shirt in his grasp, and turned towards Barbara, the wrath on his face making her want to run and hide and never come out again. She gulped before holding up the piece of paper._

"_He's not lying." She said, her voice a little shaky. "The delivery is for Lex-Corp. I found this taped to the dash." _

_Batman glared at the piece of paper before slowly lowering the man down to the ground. Barbara resisted the urge to look at the man, not wanting to see what he looked like now after the Bat was through with him. Batman stalked over to her, snatching the paper from her grasp and staring at it a long moment. Finally he looked up, nodded at her, before sweeping past her and continuing on past the van, not making any move to turn back. Barbara shot one last quick glance at the man slumped against the wall, not long enough to actually see any of the damage, before following him. _

When she'd gotten home that night, she'd found herself shaking. She hadn't been able to sleep. Batman had dismissed her shortly after the incident and she had no qualms with returning to her house and her bed and, in theory, putting the whole episode behind her. Of course it hadn't happened that way and she'd spent the whole night replaying everything that had happened. She'd ended up coming to terms with the fact that Batman was desperate and more than likely mentally unstable; but still, she'd lost nearly all her respect for the man after that night. If he'd done it for any other reason than to find Robin, she would have left him that very night and never gone back. But as it was, she knew she owed it Dick to try to do something. Even it that something was just trying to keep his mentor sane until Dick returned.

oOo

"I've told you, dey no come here no more. Dey go and take business elsevhere."

"But who were 'they'?" Roy demanded, stepping closer and looking down at the little wizened man. The long, dark hair from Roy's wig fell down on either side of his face, making him look like some sort of veiled ghost.

"Ah don't know. Custeemer confidentiality." The little man glared back up Roy, his wispy white hair making him look like the stereotypical mad scientist.

"Oh really." Blake stepped forward now, his own hair free of its usual gel and hanging down over his forehead. He stuck a hand in the pocket of his tan trench coat and pulled out a wad of bills. He unstuck five twenties from the wad and laid them on the dusty countertop between the three interrogators and the owner of the lab supply shop. The wrinkly little man looked down his skinny, pointed nose at the pile of bills and slowly reached out a gnarled hand for the cash.

Artemis kicked up her heavy boot-clad foot and brought it down on the money. It was kind of a stretch, but they were going for tough, kind of punky criminals who meant business and Artemis knew that the female criminals, at least the serious ones, were usually pretty provocative, to put it nicely. She'd seen Jade use the move multiple times on both old and young men and had garnered pretty impressive results both times.

"Not so fast." Artemis growled in her best serious-yet-sexy voice. "We need the info first."

"Ack!" The man withdrew his hand and wrinkled his face at them. "I make t'ree times dees amount off a sale of vun of my drugs."

Artemis seriously doubted this as she shot a glance around the dingy shop full of shelves of cheap-looking bottles and dangerous looking instruments. The man wasn't stupid, she'd give him that, but there was no way he made anything a real scientist would pay even one hundred bucks for a single bottle of. Blake probably realized this too, but he still pulled out three fifties and laid them on the table next to Artemis's boot. She took it as a sign to remove her leg.

"I want names, descriptions, location, anything you've got." Roy grunted, flipping his fake hair out of his face and crossing his arms.

The old man, Karl, the name on the desk said, though Artemis knew it was more than likely a cover name, sniffed, looking slightly annoyed before finally snatching up the bills.

"Fine," He wheezed, tucking the money away in his dingy looking once-white coat. "Ah vas never told name of dee buyer and I never saw heem; he alvays send random men to pick up dee orders. Strange men, never talk. Alvays wear sunglasses."

"But you must know something of where they came from?" Blake asked, leaning in a bit closer.

"Hmmm, dey no come from lab, dat I know." The man nodded. "Not public lab. Work for vun man. Vun man ees scientist. He experiment on human. On DNA. Dis I know from vhat he order."

Artemis felt her pulse quicken, something that was happening more and more recently. "Do you know where the men came from?" She demanded, stepping up next to Blake. "Where the scientist works?"

"No, dey alvays pick up. I never deliver. Dey come in white car. Eet say 'Inter-city lab delivery' on eet. Dey must come from Blüdhaven. Order once a veek. Dey no drive too far. No plane come to here to take dem avay."

"You think the scientist operates in Blüdhaven?" Blake reiterated.

"Yes."

All three of them exchanged looks. In Blüdhaven? Artemis fought to keep the emotion off her face. And Karl had said that the scientist was probably working on a human, on DNA. This had to be it. They were close. This had to be it.

"Who you t'ree again? Who you say you are?" Karl was now looking suspiciously at them as his hand went to reside over the place in his coat where he'd put the money.

"We're, uh-" Roy started but Blake cut in. "We're part of the Snakehide gang. We bust underground labs and auction off their experiments to rival labs."

"Hmm, vell you better not go bust my other customers. I no care about dose who vent elsevhere."

"We won't." Artemis assured, rather quickly. Blake had thrown out that story on the spot and her brain was still trying to catch up. "But do you know where the scientist took his business?"

Karl glanced from her to Blake. "I do know, but I vouldn't vant to bring any harm on my fellow competeetors…."Karl smirked a little.

"Of course not," Blake sighed, annoyed. He reached into his coat again and threw two more fifties on the table.

Karl snatched up the bills with a crooked-toothed smile. "I happen to know, from a very reliable source, dat dee client took hees business to dee new place down on, uh, Fifty-Second and Twelfth."

"Really?" Blake asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Really."

"Very well. Thank you for your time." Blake then reached around Roy and pulled a small, blue bottle off the shelf to the left of the counter. "And I'll take this as well." He tossed another fifty onto the counter and turned on his heel and walked out of the small, but, Artemis suddenly noticed, surprisingly new looking shop. Artemis and Roy followed, Artemis feeling her heart beginning to soar in a rather girly way. It didn't help that Wally was waiting outside for them, standing guard and dressed in a rather attractive dark, leather jacket and a pair of sunglasses and a hat pulled over his fiery hair.

Once they'd let the door to the shop close and had descended the stone steps leading up from the street, Blake turned to them.

"He was lying." He said plainly, his face impassive.

"What?" Roy asked, anger beginning to cloud over his features.

"Wait what?" Wally asked, looking confused. "What happened in there?"

"The info he gave us on the scientist – it might be true – it more than likely is – but he made up the address."

"Well then let's go back in there and make him tell us the real address!" Artemis nearly shouted. She was a little pissed.

"I'm sure he doesn't know it. He's not even the one who originally sold the supplies on our list."

The three heroes looked at the cop, confused.

"Look." Blake pulled out the blue bottle he'd bought from the man and proceeded to dump it on the ground, the clear liquid hitting the concrete and trickling away in a tiny stream into the burnt grass next to the road. "Rubbing alcohol, marketed as Fibro-anteve, a drug used in labs to render patients delirious while still fully conscious of their surroundings."

"So the guys a fake?" Wally asked, taking the bottle from Blake's hand and giving it a cautious sniff.

"Maybe, but that's not the issue here. The issue is that he's not the one who sold supplies to this 'scientist' he's talking about. His shop's new. Barely two weeks old, I'd estimate. The supplies were all bought at least two weeks ago, some even a month."

"So, what?" Artemis asked, starting to feel more than a little pissed. "The original shop's not here anymore?"

"No, it was destroyed." Blake knelt down and plucked a blade of burnt grass and held it between his fingertips. "The original shop was burned, the original owner most likely burned with it. The guy in there now-"

"Karl." Wally interrupted. Blake looked at him. "It says his name's Karl on the door." The speedster added sheepishly.

"Fine, Karl," Blake continued. "Probably saw his chance once the first shop burned down and claimed the building before anyone else could and tried to start his own business. It's made of concrete, so only what was inside the building burned."

"But then everything he told us, about the car and the scientist…." Artemis trailed off.

"It probably was true. He probably lived around this area and watched all the pick-ups and deliveries. Judging from the all of the supplies in the shop now, he may have just been waiting for a time to overrun the place himself. He was short on money, but the information he told us wouldn't have been too hard to gather if one knew what to look for. There's no reason he would lie to us."

"What exactly did he tell you guys?" Wally asked, looking slightly confused by what was going on.

Artemis briefly relayed to him what Karl had told them.

"But it all could be a lie." Roy finished. "Why would the guy in there know any of this? He probably just told us random stuff to get our money."

"But the supplies list matches up with what he told you guys," Wally pointed out, pulling the list out of his pocket. "And it all makes sense, really. We know it has to do with DNA and Donovan works alone and Robin's a human."

"But how would that guy in there know all that if he just opened shop two weeks ago?" Roy was looking mostly at Blake and Artemis knew there was still tension between them. But Roy was probably just jealous. Blake was proving himself to be an amazing detective and so far Roy hadn't solved squat.

"He was probably a stalker, waiting for his opportunity to strike." Blake said it with an air of finality, like the discussion was over. "The facts all line up."

"But what happened to the original store?" Artemis asked, cutting Roy off before he could argue more.

"Donovan is covering his tracks." Blake answered. "He was finished with this place and destroyed all evidence. But apparently he missed a piece."

"Lucky for us he did," Wally sighed. "But destroyed evidence doesn't really get us anywhere. We know they did come here, but now they've left."

"So we agree that whoever kidnapped Robin did order supplies from whatever shop was here before Karl's?" Artemis had to be sure.

"All evidence points in that direction, yes." Blake told her.

"I still think it's ridiculous to think that that guy in there knows anything about what he's talking about." Roy interjected. "If the original place did burn down and he's just in there filching off the original guys rep, then why wouldn't he make up a story for money?"

"A story that fits so perfectly in with what we know?" Wally asked. "Sure we could dismiss the car and the speechless men and the recluse scientist, but human experimentation? DNA? And here, where we have evidence of purchases of lab equipment that just might fit the match of what Donovan needs for Robin?"

"Seems like a lot of 'coincidences' if you ask me." Roy snorted. "And why wouldn't the guy in there tell us that he's not the original owner of the place?"

"Probably because he was worried we'd respond like you." Artemis retorted.

"Fine." Roy uncrossed his arms and turned and started walking to where they'd parked Wally's uncle's truck, the least conspicuous car they'd been able to procure, a couple blocks away. "Then what's to say the address he gave us isn't real too?"

Artemis knew he was just trying to make his point, but started following him anyway, a smirk growing on her face. "What's to say it isn't?" Artemis asked. She was getting near her breaking point with all of the dead ends. She needed something, even if it was ridiculous. "I say we check it out. What's the harm?"

"We end up going on a wild goose chase all around Blüdhaven which, let me remind you, is not known for its friendliness."

"Got any better ideas?"

"Guys, I thought you were becoming friends." Wally pouted, jogging up to walk next to Artemis.

Neither of them responded but Artemis rolled her eyes. Blake was walking a few feet behind them, probably knowing better by now than to get in between the two archers. He really was a smart cop. They continued walking in silence until they reached the main street through downtown Blüdhaven. The traffic was heavy per usual and the sound and stench of cars and exhaust consumed all of their thoughts for the time it took them to finish their walk down to where the truck was parked in a broken meter parking spot. They weren't too worried about being spotted; Blüdhaven, they'd quickly learned, was full of colorful characters and they hardly stood out in their dark, rather odd ensembles. They probably either looked like a wannabe gang or a wannabe band and both were generally left alone in the city.

Once they'd all climbed in the truck, Blake at the wheel, much to Roy's chagrin, Artemis heaved a sigh, resting her forehead against the window. Blake was busy trying to pull out into the traffic and Artemis watched as car after car raced by. She saw a beat up limo, followed by a Lamborghini, followed by a little car, barely alive as it spewed blue smoke and was covered in more craters than the moon. It was being tailgated rather closely by a monster truck painted with blue flames. A taxi sped by, speeding at least fifteen over and zigzagging in and out of the traffic, the driver probably getting paid extra to get his passenger to their destination faster.

Artemis pulled at her tight black leather pants before pulling up her matching leather jacket that had a habit of showing way more than she wanted it to. Another car drove by, this one switching lanes and unintentionally cutting Blake off as he tried to pull out. It was a small white car with one of those little pyramid things on top that usually said pizza something or other. This one was plain white and had the words "Inter-City Lab Delivery" sticking up on the roof as well as painted on the sides in chipped paint.

Suddenly Artemis bolted upright in her seat, startling Wally who was munching on a granola bar and causing him to choke.

"Blake!" She shouted, leaning over the front seat. "Follow that car!"

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**Thank you for reading and please review!**

**Alex out.**


	6. Step Closer

**A/N: **So, if you were all wondering why I didn't update this last weekend, it was because I was working on finishing a two-shot I was writing called Crash-Course in Birdnapping. So I'm still trying to keep up with weekend updates, but I have a volleyball tournament next weekend so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to write this week/ next weekend.

Thank you everyone followed, favorited, and reviewed! Review responses:

**KaliAnn: **Yeah, he does seem to be going off the deep end….

**Soccernin19: **Thank you! And I'm glad you like Ace; I think dogs are pretty cool.

**Nomby: **Noooo, they have! What are their plans? That is the question. I'm glad you like it. Yes, he does seem rather knowledgeable, doesn't he?

**ariaT27: **Bite their heads off? Better hope not…. And yeah, Blake seems to do that to people.

**fluffersterzz: **Thank you! I'm glad I have good cliffhangers. I've been working on those. :)

**Brightpath2: **Aren't we all? Thank you!

**LordOfTheBooks: **Snazzy name! Thank you! And pairings just happen. I dunno, the characters don't really tell me how they're feeling until they feel it. Guess that's kind of true of everybody.

**EvErYtHiNg And SoMuchMore: **That was hard to type. Please don't explode. Thank you very much.

**Abbycadabra227: **Thank you so much! I loved your review so much! Thanks for reading!

**Guest: **Your wish is my command!

* * *

Blake took one glance at the car labeled with the Inter-city Lab Delivery logo before yanking the steering wheel left and stepping on the gas, shooting out into the flow of traffic. He narrowly avoided running head on into a frozen foods delivery truck that switched lanes at the last minute. Wally sputtered and choked on his granola bar and Roy let loose a less-than-manly yell as they careened down the main street of Blüdhaven. Blake quickly righted the truck and got it under control, slowing down to driving the speed limit and keeping just behind the car.

"What the heck was that about?" Roy demanded, shooting glares at Blake and Artemis in turn.

"Can't you see what that car says on it, idiot?" Artemis retorted, pointing out the window. "'Inter-city Lab Delivery'? Ring a bell?"

"So you're actually believing that fraud?"

"Guys," Wally whined, swallowing the rest of his granola bar. "I thought we fought about this already."

"Yeah," Artemis glared at Roy. "And I thought we agreed that the guy probably knew what he was talking about!"

"His name is Karl," Wally interjected. "Give the man some respect."

"He sells illegal drugs to criminal experimenters," Roy growled. "So there's no reason to respect him or believe him."

"Ugh, sometimes I just wish I could wring that self-important neck of yours," Artemis hissed. "We are doing this to save Robin. Anything's better than nothing. We are following that car whether you like it or not. Feel free to jump out at any time. You won't be missed." When she was done talking, Artemis slouched back in her seat and crossed her arms. She was tired of Roy's attitude and tired of arguing and tired not getting anywhere.

"I'm with you all the way, Babe," Wally told her, looking into her eyes with a more serious expression than Artemis thought she'd ever seen on the freckled face. And did he just call her 'babe'?"

"Since I'm driving, I think the decision is really up to me at this point," Blake finally put in. "And I'm with Artemis. We'll follow this car, see where it goes. See what happens. But I for one think we may be on to something."

Roy, to his credit, didn't say anything more and they continued to drive in silence. Blake was skilled at tailing cars without making his presence known, but there was so much traffic on the street that anyone would be hard pressed to notice anyone following them. They drove the speed of the traffic, staying a car or two behind the lab delivery car, one lane to the left to provide a better view but always leaving space to the right in case the car made a turn. They drove for a good twenty minutes or so and eventually everyone settled down a bit and sat back in their seats, all eyes trained lazily on their prey. Wally pulled out a second granola bar at some point, offering another one to Artemis but she declined. She couldn't eat on the job. It upset her stomach.

Eventually the car pulled into the far right lane and Blake followed, sneaking in behind a garbage truck. They were cut off from view of the white car, but Blake managed to maneuver Wally's uncle's truck to the far right side of the lane and they were able to watch as the car turned on its right turn signal as it approached the next intersection. The car pulled off of the main street, followed by the Barry Allen's truck, and onto a crappy back road framed by dilapidated structures and paved with cracked and pothole-y concrete.

"Well this looks promising," Roy muttered, his tone dangerously sarcastic.

Nobody replied to him. Blake slowed down considerably, lengthening the distance between the truck and the white car, but still keeping it well in sight. The buildings along the crumbling road were mostly old apartment buildings interspersed with a few tacky shops selling various types of antique junk. The continued down the back road in silence for another five minutes until finally the brake lights of the car lit up and it slowed to a stop one hundred yards up ahead. Blake pulled over to the curb, slightly shielded from view by a low-hanging tree before cutting the trucks engine.

"Artemis and I will go and investigate," Blake commanded quietly. "Roy and Wally will act as lookout."

"Hold on," Roy cut in. "Who put you in charge?"

"The same person that didn't put you in charge," Artemis replied.

"Fine," Blake said loudly. "Roy and I will go. Artemis and Wally are look outs. Call us if anything happens and don't get too close." Blake threw his door open and jumped out. Roy imitated him, still looking unbelievably sullen and Artemis got the sudden urge to deck him hard. The two men left without another word and the next thing Artemis knew she was alone in a truck with Wally. How nice.

"Who shoved a stick up his you-know-what?" Wally asked, unclipping his seatbelt and stretching in his seat.

"You tell me," Artemis grumbled, flicking her own seatbelt aside and unlatching the passenger door. "Was he always this much of a jerk? 'Cause I always thought it was just me."

"Well, he was always a little big-headed." Wally opened his own door and jumped out. "But never this bad."

Artemis climbed out of the truck as well and quietly shut the door behind her. They were far enough away from where the lab delivery car was parked that whoever was in it wouldn't think anything about an old orange pickup truck parked a block or two away, but now was not the time for stupid mistakes.

"He's probably just worried or something," Wally sighed, walking around the front of the truck to stand next to Artemis. "So he's trying to be all manly and hide it… or something…."

"That's a horrible excuse. We're all worried."

"Yeah." There was silence for a while and Artemis was ready to take a seat on the step under the truck's doors but then Wally spoke again, his voice serious: "Arty? Do you ever have the thought that… maybe we're too late?"

Artemis turned to stare at him.

"I mean, it's been over a month. We have no way of knowing what's going on, what's happening to him. What if…."

"What if he's already gone?" Artemis finished the sentence in a hushed whisper. "Yeah, of course I think that. Like, every day. I imagine what it would be like to go in and find his body, full of needles and surrounded by test tubes and this Dabney Donovan guy standing over him and laughing the stereotypical evil scientist laugh. I imagine that Robin's dead and Batman comes and destroys everything and himself and Gotham turns into a wasteland and the Justice League crumbles and the Team breaks up and I have to go back to my dad. I imagine that we never find him and everything turns out the same way. So yeah, I've thought about it."

To Artemis's surprise, Wally laughs. Not a rueful, despondent laugh, but a genuinely amused laugh that rings like little bells in the air.

"What?" Artemis demands. So she spills her heart to him and he has the audacity to laugh?

"I thought I was the only one who thought like that," Wally breathed, a smile still on his face. "I used to say the same sort of thing to Flash all the time and he would just laugh at me. Said I was being overdramatic." Wally laughed again and Artemis couldn't help but smile a little, though she bravely fought it down.

"I wouldn't say I'm being overdramatic now."

"No, maybe not…."

The stood in silence for a while longer, each caught up in their own thoughts. Wally's smile had faded and his face deflated again. The hat he wore shadowed his face and caused him to look rather mysterious as well as sadder than usual. His eyes were dark pits in his face and his cheek bones stood out sharply in the shadows. Artemis reached over to finger her own hair, braided down her back with strands of black hair and multicolored feathers weaved into the blonde mess. Artemis was glad she hadn't been forced to dye her hair or try to shove it into a wig or even cut it for the undercover gig. The perks of being virtually unknown.

"But Artemis," Wally broke the silence. "Do you actually think it is too late?"

"I dunno," She mumbled, no real feeling behind her words. Because honestly, she didn't want to address the question. She'd hid from it for this long, unwilling to bring herself to face the facts and honestly face what she thought. She didn't know and didn't want to know. She was too afraid of the answer.

"Well I don't think it is." Artemis looked up at Wally. "I think he's still alive. We would know if he wasn't. I would feel it." There was such fire in the green eyes that Artemis wanted to believe it too.

"Wally, I don't think the whole feeling thing really works," She told him with a smile.

"Of course it does! Rob and I have best bro telepathy."

"Ugh," Artemis groaned jokingly. "Not with this again." Wally had spent a whole night explaining to her and Roy how he and Robin communicated telepathically through feelings because they were 'best bros'. Wally had said he felt bad for Robin because he was always getting the 'hungry' message. Apparently they were still working on controlling the telepathy.

"No, but seriously though, do you need me to explain it to you again?"

"No!"

"Are you sure? 'Cause I definitely can. We have time." Wally's face took on a crafty countenance. "We could sit in the truck; just you and me, Beautiful, and all the time in the world. I could show you things-"

"Wally stop!" Artemis screeched, before quickly covering her mouth.

Wally raised his eyebrows at her. "I was gonna say I could show you things like best bro telepathy and maybe we could even develop a telepathy of our own."

"I really hope you're not trying to be anything but nerdy," Artemis warned him with a small smile.

"Me, nerdy? I'm the coolest guy around."

"Around here, maybe, but if you haven't noticed, you're the _only_ guy around here."

"I – hey look!" Wally straightened and peered around the tree in front of them at the building where Blake, Roy and the driver of the white car had disappeared into. "The guy's coming out. He's got a box and he's heading for his car!"

"Roy, Blake," Artemis pressed her finger to the comm. unit in her ear. "Suspect's on the move."

"_We're on him." _Roy's voice crackled over the speaker.

"_Wally, get in the truck and come pick us up." _Blake's voice ordered._ "Wait until the car leaves and then pull up front. We're on our way out." _

"Got it," Wally replied, already racing around to the driver's side of the car. Artemis threw open the front passenger's door and climbed as Wally was inserting the key, that Blake must have left behind, in the hole and starting the engine. Artemis watched as the man, for it was a man, walked up to the white car and opened the trunk, depositing the box in it before shutting it again and sliding into the driver's seat. Wally shifted into drive and as soon as the white car pulled away from the curb, the speedster hit the gas once the car turned a corner turned a corner and the truck lurched forward. It didn't squeal, thankfully, but Artemis did feel the wind get slightly knocked out of her as she rammed against her seatbelt.

As they pulled up to the building, a nondescript shop with neon lights that said 'Laboratory Supplies', Artemis spotted Roy and Blake sprinting around from the back. Wally slammed on the brakes and again Artemis lurched forward. Roy reached the truck first and yanked open the back door, sliding all the way across the seat to leave room for Blake as he threw himself into the back of the truck behind Roy.

"Go, go!" Blake shouted, panting slightly. "The owner's on to us and he's armed."

Wally hit the gas again, but this time Artemis was ready and grabbed the seat to keep from flying forward. Roy and Blake weren't so lucky and the archer hit his head on the back of the driver's seat headrest and Blake cursed as his knees slammed into the back of Artemis's seat.

"Who let the speedster drive?" Roy demanded as they careened down the street. Wally wasn't actually too bad of a driver, Artemis noted, but the road sucked and he had two emotionally charged men shouting in his ear. The sound of gunshots echoed down the street and Artemis chanced a glance in the rearview mirror and saw a middle-aged man in a bathrobe firing at them with a semi-automatic.

"Wally, I'm going to take the wheel, okay?" Blake told the speedster, climbing up until he was balanced between the two front seats. "I'll climb in behind you and you scoot over next to Artemis."

Wally nodded, both hands gripping the steering wheel tightly and jaw locked. Blake reached over Wally and took the wheel from his control, waiting until Wally had scrambled out of the seat and onto Artemis's before sliding fully into the driver's seat and putting his foot to the gas. They were soon out of sight of the angry shop owner.

Artemis was acutely aware of how close Wally was to her, his shoulder shoved up against hers and their legs slightly tangled together. The speedster adjusted himself slightly but otherwise made no move to climb to the back seat.

"So I take it you found something," Wally said, wiggling his foot out from under Artemis's leg.

"Yes," "Maybe," Roy and Blake answered at the same time.

"What?"

"We went in the back and looked through the store's records while the owner was busy with the driver," Blake explained, slowing down a bit and swerving to avoid a large pothole. "We found two orders, each about two week apart, which similarly match the one I received from the anonymous informant. The man in the white car picked up one of the orders today. They're anonymous, but most of the orders placed to the shop are."

"Can I see the list?" Wally asked.

Roy handed him two slips of paper.

"Huh," the speedster muttered.

"What?" Artemis demanded, leaning over to read the lists. The chemical names made no sense to her, however, so she simply waited for Wally to explain.

"It's pretty close to the same as the first list," Wally mumbled, still staring intently between the two slips of paper. "But the amount of this drug," he pointed to one towards the end of the list, "keeps increasing, though the time between orders isn't decreasing as far as we know."

"What does that drug do?" Roy asked.

"I've never heard of it before. It almost seems like a special order."

"What does it mean?" Artemis asked, snatching one of the slips of paper from Wally.

"No idea."

Blake skidded around a turn.

"So you guys think this is it?" Wally asked, falling into Artemis as they took the turn way too fast. "You think these are the guys who have Rob?"

"It seems likely," Blake answered, letting the truck slow down as they approached the main street again.

"But we'll never know because the white car drove away and we're not even trying to follow it," Artemis protested, disappointed in Blake's lack of insight.

"I know. But if we had revealed ourselves to the driver of the white car they would never have returned to that shop and we'd be out of luck. If we followed the car we'd be on a wild goose chase until they finally lost us."

"So what are we gonna do now?" Wally looked from Roy to Blake.

"We're going to head back to base to talk about it," Roy answered, giving Blake a death stare.

"Seriously Roy?" Artemis exploded, whirling around in her seat to look at the offending archer. "I'm sick and tired of your jerky attitude and all the crap you're giving to all of us! We're just trying to help! You claim you want to help too? Well you're doing a freaking poor job of it! All you've done this entire gig is whine and complain and distrust _everyone_! We don't have time for this! _Robin _doesn't have time for this! So I suggest you get your act together or get out of the car!" Artemis was panting by the time she was done and her face felt hot with anger. Roy looked a little stunned but it quickly blossomed into anger.

"Robin doesn't have time for this?" He growled back, his voice dangerously low and slowly rising. "What Robin doesn't have time for is mistakes! He doesn't have time for us to go chasing after every little lead on a whim because it's the first one we've found. He doesn't have time for us to go off the claims of crooks and back alley criminals! He doesn't have time for us to chase a car through half of Blüdhaven because some old man who was probably lying told us that it maybe delivers supplies to some scientist who might possibly be experimenting on DNA that just perchance could be that of a fourteen year-old boy!"

"Artemis stop!" Wally laid a hand on her shoulder before she could retaliate. "Roy, calm down. I can't believe I have to be the one to break you two up!" Wally sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. Blake was driving in silence, now back on Main Street and his expression was unreadable. "Listen, both of you. You both want to find Robin – before it's too late. You're both worried. Roy, Artemis is willing to go after these types of leads because she thinks that if we don't, we don't have anywhere else to go. Not to mention they are kinda promising. Artemis, Roy doesn't want to go after these leads because he's worried they'll prove to be a bust and we'll be too late by time we figure that out. Do you guys understand each other now?"

The speedster looked frustrated and fed-up, but also exhausted. Artemis couldn't help feeling bad. Of all the people to be worried about Robin, Wally had the one of the best reasons to be freaking out and angry, but here he was, trying to reconcile her and Red Arrow as they hissed at each other and snapped at each other's heals. It was stupid, really. They were all being stupid, except Wally. For once.

"Wally, I'm sorry," Artemis sighed, leaning back in her seat and letting her shoulder rub up against the speedsters again.

"Don't apologize to me," Wally ground out. "Apologize to Roy. And Roy, apologize to Artemis."

Artemis set her jaw in defiance, but, seeing Wally's green eyes alight with anger as they turned towards her, she relaxed again.

"Fine. I'm sorry Harper."

"Me too." Roy looked like he was having an internal debate when finally he continued: "I'm sorry I'm being such a jerk. I know I'm being stupid. But Wally's right, I just don't want to find out we were too late. But I guess none of us do."

"No way," Artemis retorted, but it was without real venom.

Blake then cleared his throat and the three heroes turned to look at the cop. "Not that I'm not thoroughly enjoying this heart-to-heart, but I say we head back to your base and assess the situation. We've all agreed that we don't want to be too late, so we really have no time to waste."

So they didn't waste any. The conversation that night was much more subdued than any before it and Artemis finally felt like they were getting somewhere. Roy agreed to continue to pursue the lead. It meant staking out the Laboratory Supply store at 4931 Peter's Street at the time Blake found listed (roughly two weeks from the current date) on the list of orders and pick-ups he and Roy had stolen from the shop during their initial visit that the white car would return to the shop for its next pick up. In the meantime, they would help Roy investigate any other leads he managed to turn up as well as keep an eye out for other leads themselves. Artemis's respect for a certain speedster grew as Roy agreed to everything quite complacently. Now if only it would amount to something.

oOo

_Two weeks later; 5:32 p.m._

The patient – experiment – was propped up on his table, the metal constraints around his wrists, biceps, ankles, thighs, chest, neck and forehead holding him in place in the upright position. It was reminiscent of a monster movie, where the creation comes alive on an upright board through simultaneous electrocution and ingestion of colorful drugs in test tubes. The environment lent greatly to this image: the cavernous room packed to the ceiling with equipment typical of mad scientists. But that wasn't anything new.

Merida was vibrating minutely as she stood watching the Doctor prance around the room, setting off switches, ordering around assistants and generally causing a flurry of motion in the already busy-looking laboratory. They were getting close, she knew, to the end goal. Close to the final moment when all would come to fruition or else crumble to pathetic pieces. Months of work and struggle all led up to this moment, when the dreams of one man would either be realized or dashed to bits. 'One man'; that was the key phrase. All of this, just for the dreams of one crazy man. And he wasn't even that attractive anymore.

Merida repeated that to herself, as she'd been doing for the past eight days as she'd formulated her own plan. Why should the Doctor get anything and everything he wanted? What was so special about him that he could do what he willed and others would simply follow out of, what? What did they follow out of? Fear? Respect? No, they followed because they had no choice. They had nowhere to go and no one to take them in except the benevolent Doctor. So he was their hero; or more accurately the only thing left for them to hold onto as they drowned in their own oceans of disaster. Even if that lifeline proved to be a shark, it was better than nothing, right?

Wrong. Merida wasn't going to believe it any longer. She wanted out. There was no more pleasure in serving the twisted mind of Doctor Dabney Donovan and his visions of grotesque grandeur. He was no longer all she had; there was something else out that made her happy. There was something else that accepted her. And that something was about to be forever destroyed. Twisted and manipulated by the Doctor into just another creation of his mind. Soon the one last thing on earth that Merida really and truly loved would become just another of the Doctor's puppets.

But she wouldn't let that happen. A shudder ran through Merida at the thought. She was more than this. She deserved to have what she wanted. The Doctor had no right to take anything from her. Merida's dusky green eyes wandered over to the body propped upright in the center of the room. Her one true love. He was slowly wasting away before her eyes, everyday becoming less and less the creature Merida fell in love with, but she was past caring. Her love was too deep and wide for such a thing as bodily destruction to put her off of her boy. Her boy. Soon, once she succeeded in saving him, he would be all hers.

That's what she was doing; saving him. She had to remind herself of that, just as she'd had to remind herself as she carefully and deliberately placed the bombs in the closets. As she'd snuck into the Doctor's room night after night, studying his reports and trying to decipher what the untidy scrawl meant. As she'd planned and worked and studied so that everything would be just right. That's what she'd whispered to the boy every night, long after everyone else had gone to sleep. She told him she was saving him. She told him that they would run away together. She told him how much she cared and how everything she was doing against the Doctor, her first love, was for him. The boy had stolen her heart from the madman who'd so long had it in his grips.

"Yes!" The screeches of the enemy echoed through the chamber. "Yes! It's finally complete! Soon, oh so soon! Tonight! Yes, tonight! Tonight will be the night! I must do it soon. I don't have long. The DNA is unraveling…. His heart is slowing…. But no! After tonight, none of it will matter!"

Merida hardened her heart as best she could against the infectious joy of the Doctor. Normally, she would be celebrating with him, perhaps dancing around the laboratory as he sang the praises of his creation. They would hand in hand, swaying and prancing haphazardly among the dangerous equipment, no cares in the world. Her chest would be pressed against his and they would be caught up in a dance of one, moving as one body and one mind, ever onward to the greater goals of science and –

No. No, that was over. There would be no more dancing and no more rejoicing. Not with the Doctor. Not tonight and not ever again. It was the end of that time. A new era was beginning and soon, Merida would be dancing with someone else. Soon the Doctor would be a pile of ash buried under the rubble of his own dreams. Soon Merida would be free. Because the Doctor didn't own her anymore. Her life belonged to the boy on the table.

And that's what she told herself as she discreetly moved to the control panels on the wall. The Doctor was at the opposite end of the laboratory, preparing the chemical that would be the final catalyst in the fusion of the DNA. Repeating the mantra to herself again and again, Merida switched wires under the panel, recalling from memory the complex diagrams that littered the Doctor's room. The mantra was her war cry, the one she whispered in the dead of night as she disposed of the drugs meant for the boy on the table. It was what she would sing to him as he moaned and whimpered at night as the suppressant drugs wore off and he became more acutely aware of his pain and suffering and, Merida hoped, his surroundings. She hoped he heard her and saw her and was waiting just as eagerly for the moment of his freedom.

"Tonight, Merida!" The Doctor extoled, hurrying over to her and grasping her hands. "Tonight the world will know what I can do! Tonight, I will finally have created the ultimate weapon! Tonight, that weapon will walk the earth!"

Except it wouldn't. Tonight, the doctor would be dead and the boy would be all hers. Tonight, it ends.

* * *

**A/N: **I wonder what the next chapter will be called? ;)

Thanks for reading and please review!

Alex out.


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